


Consider the Hairpin Turn

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dreamworld, Hell Trauma, M/M, season 6 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 06:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11075577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: AU of 6x22:Sam's wall has shattered and the memories in his mind have splintered. When the Sam who remembers Hell tells him to go find Jess and be happy, Sam knows he can't stay while Dean needs him. But when the Sam from Hell says that Dean is already there looking for him, Sam leaves his memories of the pit behind to find him.What he finds is a life he doesn't remember: a house that he shares with his brother (and has for years), a law career he thought he'd left behind at Stanford, and a relationship with Dean he never dreamed he could have. Life is almost too good to be true, at least until Sam begins to hear his brother's voice calling to him, begging him to wake up.





	Consider the Hairpin Turn

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of my 2011 [samdean_otp minibang](http://samdean-otp.livejournal.com/) originally posted [here](http://infatuated-ink.livejournal.com/64076.html). Amazing art is by the talented [Sagetan](http://sagetan.livejournal.com/) and can be found [here](http://sagetan.livejournal.com/18505.html).

"Go find Jess," he says, the pleading look in his eyes bordering on manic. "I'm not going to fight you, but you don't want to know."

Sam averts his gaze. He can see something in the man's expression that terrifies him, like he's already beginning to remember how bad Hell was just by looking at him. It takes all of Sam's control to stay firm and turn down the offer. "You know me," he replies. "You know why I have to go back. I'm not leaving my brother."

"Dean." The other Sam's mouth curves into a soft smile across the room. Sam should be suspicious of it, should know better than anyone that nobody smiles like that when Hell is the only thing they know. "Go find Dean, then."

Sam tilts his head. "That's what I'm trying to do," he says, pointing his gun back at his own heart. "Wake up and save Dean."

Hell's Sam shakes his head, apparently unperturbed by the gun aimed at him. "Dean is here," he says. "You can't just leave him wandering around."

Sam lowers his weapon. "What?"

"You didn't think he would let you go into something like this alone, did you? He'll help you get out. Without me. You don't need to know what I know."

Sam realizes now that it was pretty stupid not to think of that. When has he been the one to help instead of the other way around? Dean's probably already stopped Castiel, come back for him, and is worrying himself sick looking for Sam while Sam stands around talking to a version of himself who will only make Dean's job harder. He doesn't need to remember Hell. His brother has saved him from that before.

"Where do I go?"

Across the room, there's a look in Sam's eyes that almost makes him reconsider trusting this. Triumphant over the solemn exterior. But that Sam only wants what's best for both of them, so Sam is going to let him win. "Just get in the car and drive until you find him," he says. "Get far away from me."

Sam does just that.

_______________________________________________________________

He loses track of how many miles he has to go before he finally finds home. The landscape is erratic, all of it beautiful, but none of it fits together. Desert melts into grassy valley when it gets too hot for Sam's comfort, valley turns to mountain, then waterfalls, there are rainforests surrounded by tundra surrounded by beaches. Sam drives until he can't remember this is not the way things always were. The Impala doesn't protest under thousands of miles, Sam never stops for gas. He just wants to find Dean, to show him how wrong they've been. They never paid enough attention to the side of the road; they've missed the things that make the world worth saving. Sam gets giddy and optimistic and nearly forgets anything bad has ever happened. That's when he reaches the end of the highway.

The street runs right to the door of a wooden house. It has blue shutters, smoke curling from the chimney, it looks like a picture from a book of fairytales. It's not until Sam parks the car that he realizes how hungry he is, how tired, how much he wants to sink into whatever the person inside this house will give him and sleep. He'll get back to searching for Dean in the morning.

It's mostly a stumble from the car to the cottage door. Sam's been driving for days, maybe longer. He doesn't remember much before the driving. It seems weird, now that he's stopped, that he didn't need to earlier.

He brings his hand up, but it never comes down. The door opens before Sam knocks; Dean's on the other side, smiling at first, then looking worried. "Sam?" he asks, reaching out. Sam doesn't realize he's swaying on his feet until Dean steadies him. "Sam, are you okay? You look awful."

"Hungry," Sam says. "Just hungry."

Dean laughs, wraps an arm around his neck and tugs him into the house. He closes the door behind them, then gives Sam a stern look. "You had me worried for a bit, man. Didn't tell me where you were going."

Sam looks back at the door, blinking through a haze. He doesn't know where he went, either. "I'm…sorry?"

"Got something on the stove. It used to be chicken, but you know with my cooking it could be charcoal by now." Dean shrugs, smiling beautifully. Sam thinks maybe he looks different, like he's not supposed to know how to smile like that. But he's not sure, and it suits Dean so well Sam decides not to say anything. "Sure you're okay, Sammy?"

Sam realizes he's been staring. He closes his mouth and shakes his head, hoping to knock his brain back into place. "Yeah, I'm just…out of it. Long drive."

Dean nods sympathetically. "We'll hit the hay right after dinner."

He walks ahead of Sam, talking a mile a minute, but Sam doesn't catch much of what his brother says. He's looking around the house— _their_ house, Sam doesn't know how he knows it's theirs but he knows it. For some reason, he'd forgotten they had a house. It's nice, though, Sam likes it. There are souvenirs from places they've driven through, just enough to make the place feel lived in without anyone trying to imply it's been decorated. There are pictures of them on the mantle. Sam bends to get a closer look. "Dude, when did we go to the Grand Canyon?"

There's a hand on the small of his back then, and it makes Sam's skin flush with heat. Dean leans in, pressing his body against Sam's to see the picture over his shoulder. "You don't remember that?" He laughs right in Sam's ear. "Man, that was hardly a year ago. June and July road trip?" Sam turns to face him, must look as confused as he feels, because Dean smacks him on the side with the kitchen rag he's holding, like Sam's just messing with him. "It was your idea, and then you wanted to run back to the motel after like five minutes because baby couldn't handle the heat."

Sam pulls away from the picture and stands at his full height. Of course he remembers that. "I was sick, Dean. I was sick because of the place _you_ made us eat the night before."

"Oh, you remember when it's my fault," he replies, arching an eyebrow. "Whatever, I still say it was the sun. Frying whatever brains you've got left." Dean puts his hand on top of Sam's head and messes up his hair, and Sam is so out of it he forgets to smack him away. Dean's voice softens, "Come on, Sammy. Dinner's ready."

Despite Dean's knocks to his own cooking earlier, dinner is delicious. Sam is also half starved to death, so that may have something to do with it, but he's pretty sure it's better than anything Dean's made him before. Maybe he learned how to cook at Lisa's, Sam thinks, and then he wonders who the hell Lisa is.

Dean doesn't wash up after they finish, just drops everything in the sink and squeezes some dish soap out to leave the dirty plates soaking overnight. Sam gets a familiar flare of annoyance, like this is something they fight about all the time, but he's too exhausted to get up and clean them now. He tries to stand at the table and gets dizzy, almost collapses back into his chair. Dean catches him. "All right, big guy," he says. "Let's put you to sleep."

Sam allows his brother to lead him as far as the stairs, then struggles out of Dean's hold. "I can get to bed on my own."

Dean says nothing, just keeps his eyes on Sam from the bottom of the stairs as Sam slowly makes his way to the top. Sam knows better than to think Dean isn't hovering just as much as he was before Sam's outburst, but at least he can save face if Dean doesn't physically carry him all the way to the second floor. Anyway, Sam's tired enough to need help without being tired enough not to realize it.

Dean climbs up after him, makes it to the top just as Sam is wondering which room in the hallway is supposed to be his. He tangles his fingers in the bottom of Sam's shirt and tugs to the left, and Sam takes one shaky step after him. "You taking me to bed?"

"Damn straight," Dean answers, pushing the door to a small bedroom open and flicking on the light. There's a big quilt on the bed that looks homemade, and Sam thinks he can remember the face of the old lady they bought it from.

"Gonna tuck me in, too?" Sam teases. "Tell me a story?"

"Maybe," he says. "If you're lucky. Are you feeling lucky, Sam?"

The ceiling fan is already beginning to cut at the air, meaning the heat Sam thinks he could die from has nothing to do with the temperature. He swallows hard and reminds himself that he's the only one taking what Dean said out of context. "Um," he answers stupidly.

Dean ignores it, takes a step closer and cups Sam's face with both hands. "Promise you are," he says.

"Promise I'm what?" Sam asks, trying to turn away from Dean before he does something stupid.

"Getting lucky tonight." Dean pulls him in and presses his lips to Sam's without hesitating. Without asking for permission. Just takes it.

Sam reaches for one of his brother's hands, holds it as he breaks away from the kiss. "We don't do this," Sam tells him. "Do we do this?"

Dean pushes Sam back toward the bed and closes in on him. Sam falls onto the mattress, and Dean crawls over him, ducking his face down until his lips are pressed against Sam's ear. "Sammy, we've always done this."

Sam puts a palm out, presses it against Dean's chest. "Dean, we're brothers."

The worried look that had been on Dean's face when Sam pushed him away disappears under another easy smile. "Always," he says again, moving back into Sam's space.

If Sam could think of a single good reason to make him stop, he would.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam kills three people that night. He dangles a child in front of a monster as bait and calls it a job well done when the kid only loses one limb. He sleeps with seven married women, two of them while their children are in the same house. He wakes up shaking, screaming, there are hot tears on his cheeks before he even opens his eyes. But he wakes up surrounded by his brother, the pads of Dean's thumbs wiping the wet away, a soft sound filling his ears, the kind of cooing you use to calm a wild animal. Dean must have practice with this, because it only takes a few seconds of his whispering, a deep gasp of air, Sam's fingers tangled in Dean's shirt, hanging on to what's real and safe, for Sam to figure out where he is and why he's dreaming these things. Those are memories, not dreams, and now Sam is saddled with them.

"Oh God," he says. "I killed them. Dean, when I got back from Hell, I…I remember every—"

"Shh," Dean says, gathering Sam into his arms, smoothing his hand down Sam's back. "Shh, Sammy. It wasn't you. You didn't do any of that."

"I did," he says. "I'm a monster."

Dean forces out a laugh. "No shit, Big Foot."

Sam shakes his head, burrowing under the covers. "Don't make excuses for me and don't try to change the subject. I—"

" _He_ was a monster," Dean snaps. "You were in—you weren't there, Sam. You couldn't stop him." Sam catches the word his brother so carefully omits. _Hell_ , Sam was in Hell. Weird that it's the things he did outside of Hell that are keeping him up at night. Not that Sam really wants to know why that is or poke at memories he's lucky to be blanking on. 

"It still counts," Sam insists. "If I can remember it, it counts."

Dean worries his bottom lip for a moment before leaning in slowly for a quick kiss. Sam is still too pleasantly surprised by that to call Dean out on the obvious diversion. He doesn't know why it feels so off to have Dean touching him, Dean says it's always been happening, and Sam distantly remembers a thousand shared kisses, all the nights he's taken his brother or watched Dean take him blending together. Maybe it's just because he's happy, and Sam can't get used to that no matter how long it's been. He reaches up, fingers gripping the back of Dean's neck as he licks at his bottom lip. He's willing to work on getting used to it.

"Want me to suck you?" Dean asks, already sucking at Sam's neck. Sam groans, arching up into Dean's hand when he feels for Sam's cock under the covers. He starts to move down, trailing kisses on Sam's chest, but Sam stops him. Dean pulls up and looks at him closely. "Too tired," Dean guesses. "Not gonna be that easy to distract you tonight, huh?"

Sam can't help feeling guilty. "I'm sorry, Dean. I just. Not right now."

Dean nods, coming back up and resting his head on the edge of Sam's pillow. He brushes a few stray hairs off Sam's forehead and sighs. "The nightmares were getting better," he says. "I thought they had stopped."

Sam doesn't know what to say to that. He thought this was the first one. Sam's memory is doing weird things tonight, and Dean obviously knows better. Maybe it's been years since Sam got his soul back. Maybe it's time for Sam to get over it. "Let's just go back to sleep, okay?"

Dean nods, one more chaste kiss before he turns in Sam's arms, molding his back against Sam's chest like that's habit. Yeah, Sam can definitely get used to it.

_______________________________________________________________

"Up, asshole, up up up." Sam puts his hand over his eyes, shocked at how much sunlight can make it through white curtains. Dean is standing at the end of the bed wearing a t shirt and jeans and a scowl. "You slept through three alarms. You do _like_ being employed, right?"

Sam sits up and tries to gather his thoughts. He squints at Dean's shirt and feels something like rockets launching in his chest. "You're a fireman," he says.

"Yeah, Sam, and you have half an hour to get to work."

"You always wanted to be a fireman," Sam tells him, like Dean doesn't know. "You told me that once."

Dean looks down at his shirt, then back up at Sam. "This is not exactly a new development."

"You're still a hero," Sam adds with a smile.

Dean's face shifts into disbelief. "Are you sick? Should I call your boss or something?"

"I have a boss?"

Dean smirks and waves a dismissive hand in Sam's direction. "Now you just want attention."

Sam works at a law firm, apparently. He tries asking Dean when the hell he went back to school for that, but Dean just laughs, kissing him with a mug of coffee in his hand as he literally kicks Sam's ass out the door. Outside, the highway Sam thought he drove in on has disappeared along with the woods and been replaced by a long row of white houses, green lawns, blue and red cars on their way to work. Sam looks back to realize the home he mistook for a cottage is just another standard suburban house on the block. The highway must have been a part of the nightmare, he tells himself, pulling the car keys Dean handed him out of his pocket and discovering that he has a black BMW parked next to Dean's baby.

Sam finds his way to work on instinct, arrives well over 45 minutes late, and only gets a fond ribbing from his boss, a man Sam swears he's never seen before but who calls Sam 'son' a lot regardless.

_______________________________________________________________

He returns home that night to a sink full of dishes, Dean's coffee mug from that morning precariously perched atop all the plates from dinner the night before. He drops his suit jacket on the couch, rolls up his sleeves, and is still elbow-deep in dirty dishwater when he hears the back door swinging shut over the sound of water pouring. He's about to turn it off when he feels Dean's arms wrap around his middle, Dean's face nuzzling into his neck. "Honey, I'm home," he says quietly, and Sam chuckles as he grabs another cup and attacks it with a sponge.

Sam wrinkles his nose. "You smell like sweat and smoke."

"You smell like farts and last night's dinner," Dean replies, letting go. Sam counts his steps to the refrigerator, listens to the clink when Dean grabs a Budweiser, and holds his breath as Dean makes the journey back to the sink and places a second bottle right next to Sam on the counter.

"You wanna tell me what's been up with you since last night?" Dean asks before handing over the drink. Dirty move.

"Do I have to?" Sam shakes drops of water off his hands and just hardly stops himself before he dries them on his very expensive pants. This whole 'refined lawyer' thing is going to take some practice. Dean doesn't relent so Sam just sighs. "I really don't know, man. It's just, you know. Stuff. From the wall breaking, I guess."

Dean moves quickly, pops the top off Sam's beer before Sam even realizes he's got a bottle opener in his hand. "Sam, I thought we were past this. If you need help, you gotta tell me, you can't just pretend it's smooth sailing for _months_ and then freak out like that." Dean takes a long swig from his beer and looks away. "You scared the crap out of me last night."

"I know, Dean. I scared us both."

Dean looks up at him for a long moment, then makes a grudging sound and turns away. "Just keep me updated."

Sam reaches forward before Dean makes it out of the kitchen and drags him back in. It's his turn to get handsy. "Why don't you update me on dinner?" Sam suggests, fighting when Dean tries to squirm out of his arms.

"I work all day, and this is what I come home to," Dean complains.

"I washed the dishes," Sam says proudly, gesturing to the empty sink with the hand he's not using to hold onto Dean.

"Yeah, in case anyone was wondering if your spoiled ass was a little brother." Dean finally gets tired of trying to escape and stills in Sam's embrace, giving Sam a chance to kiss him. He turns his face away, but Sam's lips land on the corner of his mouth, and it's curved up in a smile. "I work and work and work and come home and I have to cook, but—praise Jesus—he did the dishes."

"I guess I _could_ try pulling something together."

Dean snorts. "What, are you high? You ever tried your own cooking, little man? We'll all die in here."

"Yeah, all two of us," says Sam, releasing Dean. "What're you feeding me?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "You're a pain."

"A hungry pain." Sam gives his brother a pleading look. "So very hungry."

"Think you can live forty minutes without food?" Sam nods and Dean continues, "I was thinking we'd order from that pizza place you like. The Chiefs are playing the Raiders tonight. Big game."

Sam follows his brother to the living room. "I know why you're excited, Dean," Sam says. "And I just want to remind you it doesn't work like that."

Dean falls onto the couch, lifting only his feet when Sam gives him a 'where am I supposed to sit?' look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sam sighs, settling Dean's feet in his lap. "Kansas City is in Missouri. It's not our home team."

"Close enough," says Dean, grinning. "Unless you've got a better solution."

"You know how I like my California teams," Sam answers, correctly assuming it'll get him a cushion in the face. They fight over it for a solid twenty minutes, over how Sam is a traitor and Dean sucks at geography, and by the time the pizza arrives, they've already got bets going on how the game will end. Sam is either getting a blowjob tonight or giving one, and either way he doesn't really care.

They wake up long after the game ends. Sam is drooling on his hand, Dean's feet are still in his lap, and there's nothing but two unfinished pizza crusts in the greasy box on the table. The nightly news is playing, announcing that Sam is apparently the big loser.

"How'd it end?" Dean slurs when Sam shakes him awake.

"You lost," Sam tells him.

Dean chuckles and switches the TV off. "That's good," he says. "I was worried my brother was a lying little shit for a minute there."

"Ah, so you did see the end."

He sits up, rubbing the palms of his hands in his eyes and yawning. "Unlike you, girly man, I could never fall asleep through football."

Sam helps him up. "So I guess I owe you, then."

Dean smiles sleepily. "Yeah, I'm gonna cash in on that one another time. I'm beat."

"Let me get this straight. You're turning down sex, but I'm the one without enough testosterone?"

"Shut up," Dean replies.

Things go on like that for a week. No, a month. Or is it a year? Sam counts at first. Treasures the little milestones, keeps a stupid list of them in his head. This is his second Wednesday of work. This is the tenth time Dean lets Sam kiss him. This is the third consecutive week in which no one has tried to kill either of them. But he loses track. He can't remember if it's the forty-third kiss or the forty-fourth; the seventh Friday is too much like the eighth, so Sam's not sure if they're the same one or not. It all blurs, because that's what happens when people have a routine. Sam used to lose track of what monster's guts he got on his face during which hunt, never things like this. He's never had thirty-one good nights a month and thus not been able to call up specifics. Sam lets himself lose track of time, because fixating on numbers is too tentative, too disbelieving. It started out as a defense mechanism. Sam would go to bed at night and tell himself, _I know this isn't real. I know things like this can't last. But we've stolen XYZ, and there's no way anything is taking that back from us._

It's not that life is perfect. It isn't. Sam can't seem to wash off the blood that soulless year left on his hands some days, and Dean always fucking notices and gets worked up about it. They fight sometimes. He doesn't win every case, comes home from work exhausted and wishing he could just punch something evil again. But Dean helps him through the guilt, they work hard to deal with it until Sam has mostly accepted it. They make up after fights—they make up in hot, sweaty tangles and kisses that substitute for apologies. Dean forces Sam to relax when work has him coiled up, then offers to shoot the jury for voting against him just to make Sam laugh despite himself. It feels like months, maybe a year since this started, but Dean says it's been longer. Sam wants so badly to believe him and trust it that eventually he does.

So, apparently, Sam and Dean Winchester have been domesticated. He doesn't know how, doesn't remember much of what has happened in the years since Hell. Sam falls into the routine easily, happily, and doesn't worry Dean with the memory glitch. It's enough to know what they have now and that they'll have it forever. Forgetting how they got this is worth it as long as it continues to go hand in hand with forgetting just how bad things had to get before they did.

They live in a small town, though it's bigger than it feels when they're at home. Sam and Dean don't get visitors ever; life in their house is even more isolating than life on the road was. There are no thankful near-victims or other hunters breathing down their necks, and although Sam has his friends at work and knows Dean gets along with the other guys at the station, nobody follows them back. They rarely go to see anyone. All those people they cross paths with don't matter. Nothing matters except his brother waiting for him at the end of the day.

It should be dull. Sam used to hate that part of being a hunter, used to long for people other than his brother to connect with, even when they weren't fighting or butting heads at all. But nobody Sam talks to these days seems to have more depth than a paper cup, and it's never worth Sam's time to talk to them when he could be kicking back on the porch, drinking a beer and swapping insults with Dean. After a while, Sam begins to wonder why that is. It's a small town, sure, but it's not very realistic that not one person for miles really seems to exist outside of what Sam knows about them.

It's the girl at the grocery store who gives it away. She bags the food they buy, always the same girl, no matter what day they go on, which register they choose, or who the cashier is. She has dark red hair and a face that Sam is sure used to belong to an angel. She always smiles at Dean as she hands him their last bag—every time it sends the same jealous flare though Sam, even though Dean's returning flirtation is never more than a game to either of them.

Sam takes a closer look at people then. His boss, Zach, wears the same suit everyday and begins to scare Sam. The boy who delivers their pizza once a week has their father's eyes under the baseball cap he wears, and Sam had forgotten they even had another brother. The woman across the street with the baby and the dog used to be the love of Sam's life, but when he crosses and tries to talk to Jess, she doesn't recognize him or answer to her name. They're like people in a dream, memories Sam's pulled up that are only there to populate a world that doesn't really have anything more than Sam and his brother.

The answer to the puzzle is simple. They're in Heaven. Sam died when his wall broke; Dean must not have waited long to follow him. If Sam had known it would be like this, he would have died years ago and good riddance.

Dean furrows his brows when Sam asks if something feels off, flat out laughs and teases Sam for a month when he suggests their life is Heaven. Dean must not remember dying, the same way Sam didn’t for so long, probably thinks he's finally giving Sam the life he's always wished he could. Sam sees no reason to correct him, so he pretends to be sheepish when Dean mocks the Heaven theory and contentedly goes about his afterlife.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam is rocking into his brother, about a minute from coming apart, the first time he hears it. It sounds like Dean is saying something from miles away, so Sam pauses and listens to Dean's heavy breathing.

"Why'd you stop?" Dean asks, ass moving up, pushing onto Sam. "God, fuck, don't stop."

Sam puts a hand on Dean's back to restrain himself from thrusting. "What'd you say?"

"Said don't fucking stop," Dean tells him, sharp edge to his words.

"No, before that. When I was still—"

"Didn't say anything because I was too busy enjoying myself," Dean replies. "Wanna get back to that?"

Sam strains to hear what he thought he'd heard before, but everything is quiet, and his dick is about done being patient. Sam shakes his head and convinces himself it was the wind outside the house.

The next day is a Wednesday, which means Dean's shift is going to keep him at the station for two full days before they get their weekend together. Sam doesn't usually mind his long shifts all that much—it means Dean is home before Sam the rest of the week and he can look forward to a warm meal. It's not like a couple of days apart here and there are going to kill them, anyway, and Sam never worries about Dean while he's at work. It garners a chuckle the first time he stops to reflect on it—most people don’t think of "firefighter" as a reassuring occupation for loved ones, but Sam will let Dean run into every burning building he can find and know that this is the safest thing he could be doing. It's not hunting. The flames aren't hellfire, they can be stopped with a little bit of effort. They got out, for real this time.

But today, he's worried. Today Sam drags Dean back to bed until he finally promises to sneak Sam into the station after Sam's done at work as long as he brings enough fried chicken for everyone. Even that's not enough. Sam can't get the weird memory of what he thought he'd heard the night before out of his head. It had sounded just like Dean, but not like Dean sounds when he talks to Sam. And maybe it _had_ been the wind, but the wind was carrying words, carrying his brother's words. Dean had sounded terrified, distraught, had been begging Sam for something. Sam forgot his brother could sound that desperate in these last few months.

He goes through the workday on alert, waiting for something terrifying to strike. He calls Dean so many times Dean asks if he should come home. Sam says no, he's just being silly, and doesn't bother his brother again, shoulders the freak-out on his own. It hadn't been like his psychic visions, and if Dean had been in trouble, he wouldn't have told Sam to stop worrying and keep fucking. It was just one time, one weird, imagined whisper, and Sam has enough weird shit rattling around in his brain that lapses like that are going to happen every now and then. It's not that big a deal. Sam will have forgotten about it by morning.

Problem is, Sam can't forget about it in the morning, because he wakes up halfway through the night and hears it again. Much clearer now that his mind isn't clouded by sex and Dean's impatience. He thinks it really is Dean at first, reaches out for his brother only to find empty space where he should be sleeping. It takes a few minutes for Sam's brain to catch up, remember that Dean is on his shift and is not supposed to be here, and there is no indication that he's in any kind of danger. By then, his heart is beating out of control. The words are still whispering somewhere over Sam's head.

It's not natural, doesn’t sound like a human talking, but it has to be. Monsters don't come here. Things like this don't happen anymore. Not to Sam and Dean. They're safe. The only logical explanation is that Sam is going crazy. He's hearing things, hearing voices, making the worst possible specter appear in his and Dean's ideal life. For whatever reason, his insecurities from all the bad shit he's caused are resurfacing and soon he'll be a drooling, weeping mess, and all the quiet happiness they've fought so hard for will be lost.

He sinks back into bed, pushing Dean's pillow over his face to try and drown out the sound. It smells nothing like Dean, smells like something or somewhere that was once familiar and that Sam can't quite place. Sam suddenly feels like everything smells this way and he's just gotten so used to it that he's stopped noticing. Whiskey and Old Spice. Someone used to smell like that, but it wasn't Dean.

The voice doesn't get any quieter, which Sam takes as further confirmation that he is crazy. Obviously it won't be any less loud if it's in his head. But why now? Why after all this time, after Sam was finally starting to relax? Just how damaged do you have to be to start hearing things in Heaven?

_Sammy, please. Come on. Sam, come on. Wake up. Please wake up._

"I'm awake," Sam tells his brother, pushing the pillow aside. "Dean, I'm awake, where are you?"

The pleading continues as if Sam had never spoken, _Please wake up. For me, you gotta. You gotta wake up. Sam. Please. Please._

Against his better judgment, Sam pushes his comforter away and sets his feet on the floor. His legs are shaking; he walks with one hand on the wall to steady himself, staring up at the ceiling like he'll see the voice or the person responsible for it. There's nothing.

_Look, I'll, I'll do anything, Sam. You name it. I'll give up good music and, I don't know. I'll start doing research. Or, Sam, I'll never eat another slice of pie in my life. Sam, I'm serious. You gotta wake up now, okay?_

"I am," Sam insists again, yelling this time. "I'm up, please tell me where you are. You're scaring me. Dean, where are you?"

The voice pauses for a long time, but Sam doesn’t think it's because it heard him. It sure as shit doesn't bother answering his question.

_I won’t ever let them near you again. Not any of them. Sammy, I'm gonna protect you. You're gonna be safe out here, all right? Just wake up, I can't do this any—_

Dean drops off then, and Sam sinks to the floor in the hallway, still resting against the wall. His whole body is trembling now. He doesn't understand why Dean is doing this to him. "I know it's safe, Dean," he whispers. "It's not—no one is saying it isn't. We're okay now. I trust you."

 _I'm sorry, Sam._ Dean's voice is hushed. Slippery with alcohol or tears or both. _God, I'm so sorry. I wish I was dead._

It's been a long time since Sam's wanted to cry, but he does now, thankful that Dean isn't around to know about it. He can't decide if it's good his brother is missing this or if it just means more trouble down the road. If it never happens again, Sam will be relieved he spared Dean the trauma. But if it gets to be a regular occurrence—and Sam has a sinking feeling it will—his only hope is that his brother's presence will keep the panic attacks at bay, or at least allay them a little.

Then again, it'll be hard for Dean to help him when he's the one causing this whole mess. Sam lets out a shaky laugh on the floor and wipes at his eyes, doesn't realize that they're drifting shut, that he feels like he weighs three times as much as he does. Sam relearns his worst nightmares that night.

_______________________________________________________________

He's still sprawled out on the floor in the hallway when Dean finds him. Sam's being shaken awake, and he comes to slowly, disoriented by where he is and why he's waking up there and the fact that Dean looks worried.

"What happened?" he asks.

Dean lets out a heavy breath and pulls Sam up as he stands. "Man, you better tell me."

"You have work," Sam says. "You're supposed to be at work today."

"You, too," Dean points out. And shit, he's right. "I got a call at the station asking me if you were coming in. They said you hadn't shown up or called in and weren't answering your phone, so I got someone to take my shift. Jesus, I nearly had a heart attack. I come home and you're sleeping on the floor—and now you're asking _me_ what happened?"

Sam stares at the wall behind Dean. "You really weren't here last night, then?"

Dean tilts his head and seems to be debating whether Sam is messing with him or not before he presses a palm to Sam's forehead. "No, seriously. What is wrong with you lately?"

Sam doesn't bother shoving him away. He doubts Dean will find anything fever-related, but man would it be a relief if he did. Dean pulls his hand off after a minute, looking stumped, and shakes his head. "You're really not gonna tell me?"

"I'm not lying when I tell you I don't get it either." Sam smiles, completely unsubtle in his attempt to change the subject. "Hey, are you hungry? I'm hungry. Do you wanna go get something since we're both off work today any—?"

Dean cuts Sam off with a glare and points sternly in the direction of their bedroom. "You go to bed until I'm convinced you are one hundred percent ready to function in normal society again. You want off the hook? Then tell me what's up. Otherwise, off you go."

Sam opens his mouth, considers the terms, and closes it. A day in bed isn't going to do him any harm, and if he plays his cards right, he won't have to spend it alone.

By the end of the day, Sam has managed to talk Dean into bed with him, and they're wrapped up in too many blankets and each other, cartons of Chinese propped between them as they mock some reality show about rich people cleaning toilets.

Dean is waving a dumpling in front of Sam's face, and Sam is finally beginning to shake off the uncanny feeling he's been getting since he started hearing the voice. So of course that's exactly when it comes back.

It's not as bad this time. Dean sounds like he's mostly holding it together. He goes right into talking as if Sam's there with him, and Sam would think it really was Dean, except that it's still coming from somewhere far away, and he can see Dean's mouth, smiling at him but not speaking.

 _Broke my shoelace this morning_ , Dean's saying. _Just the end of it, though, so I spent fifteen goddamn minutes of my life trying to get it back in._

"Do you hear that?" Sam sits up and pushes Dean off him, reaching for the remote.

Dean pops the dumpling into his own mouth and chews as he replies, "Hear what?"

Sam makes a face at Dean to cover his laugh. "The talking. Do you hear someone talking?"

Dean swallows the rest of his dumpling and then arches an eyebrow. "It's called a television, Sam. It's this fascinating device, see, you sit and watch it and the people will move and even talk!"

"It's not the TV," Sam says, muting it. "You don't hear that?"

_I know what you would have said. Just buy a new one, right? 'It's like two dollars, Dean, stop being such a cheapskate.'_

Dean makes a troubled face before a look of understanding passes over him. "Oh, okay. I see what's going on here. You need me to distract you, right? From whatever you're hearing?" Dean snickers as he pushes the food onto his bedside table. "It's not right to use the fact that I'm worried about you against me, you know," he says, trailing kisses down Sam's neck as he climbs on top of him. "But I guess this one time I'll forgive you."

Sam relaxes and puts his hands on his brother's hips, letting himself get swept away in having his hands full. Dean kisses deep, too deep for Sam to think about anything else, and Sam is thankful for it. He thrusts up when Dean grinds down on his dick, and Dean sets a steady pace as they make out.

_Yeah, well, we're not all princesses, Sam. We don't all need pretty things to be happy._

Sam tries to ignore it, tries to grip Dean harder and convince himself that makes him real. Dean lets out a yelp of pain at the added pressure but groans too, pulling Sam in just as hard. It's hot; Dean's all his and up for anything, and yet Sam can't get into it. Can't ignore what he's hearing, even if it is just his imagination.

_You know, the thing about princesses is they always wake up. At the end of the story. So don't tell me you aren't a princess, Sammy. You wake up. Wake up and scowl at my shoelaces._

Sam pushes Dean off him and sinks back in bed, letting out a deep sigh.

"Sam?" Dean asks. "What's wrong? Thought we were having a pretty good time."

Sam stares up at the white ceiling for a few seconds, then turns over on his side, back to Dean.

_Just make it sooner than later, okay?_

_______________________________________________________________

Sam goes to work the next day, the voice follows him to work. The voice follows him to lunch. The voice follows him home Friday night. It ruins Sam's weekend. It's about as clingy as his brother always has been, without the novelty of blowjobs every now and then. Sam tries to drown it out, but it's hard. It's always been hard to ignore Dean when he's in pain, and he usually does his best to hide it. This time, for whatever reason, he's not bothering. He tells Sam everything that pops into his goddamn head—what he ate, what he did on any given day, not that he ever does much. From what Sam can tell, all this Dean he's imagining ever does is sit around and tell Sam to wake up.

Sam is pretty fucking tired of it.

Sunday night, he's reading in bed, and Dean is downstairs singing off key to some shit on the stereo and making dinner. It's been mostly quiet all day, so Sam is more resigned than genuinely upset when he starts hearing the voice again. Dean sounds short this time, out of breath. Angry, like he's been fighting.

_Sam. Fucking come on already._

Sam rolls his eyes, turns a page.

 _You gotta wake up. You gotta._ Sam's room starts shaking, like there's an earthquake, but all the objects around him are moving in time with it. Nothing falls over, nothing is taken by surprise except for Sam. Downstairs, Dean's singing doesn't falter. It feels like the whole world is being shaken, not just the ground. Dean is yelling now, his voice broken as he fights with something. _Wake up. Wake up!_

Sam closes his eyes, tells himself he's imagining the chaos, and then opens them again. Everything is still going crazy, and Dean sounds like he's on the verge of crying. Finally it stops—too suddenly. Sam feels like he's dropping, swears his body hits the bed, but it doesn't, he's still sitting up.

 _Bobby said today you're not gonna. He said I need to start 'seriously considering the possibility.'_ Dean barks out a bitter laugh. _He keeps quoting medical bullshit at me and—but he's wrong. It doesn't work like that this time. This isn't some run-of-the-mill coma, and you're not just anyone. You're my little brother and you're waking up, I don't care how long it's been._

Sam's eyes widen as the words wash over him and make entirely too much sense. Because the world was shaking a moment ago, like Dean was shaking Sam and the world is in Sam's head. Because Sam felt Dean drop him, felt his body meet a mattress outside of everything he's seeing right now. Because Bobby Singer used to smell like Old Spice and whiskey, and Sam forgot the man existed until Dean mentioned him.

_You're gonna prove him wrong, man. Just this one time, we wanna prove him wrong. Do it for me, okay? Please._

"Dinner's ready," Dean calls from downstairs.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he yells back, but he's looking up at the ceiling as he says it, and he's hoping that somehow his brother can hear it.

He gets to the table in time to watch Dean set the last pieces of silverware, and the smile he gives Sam when he notices him standing in the doorway makes Sam's heart fall right through his stomach.

"Hey, Sammy." He says it exactly like Dean always does. "You hungry?"

"Yeah," Sam lies, making his way to his seat at the table. "You made my favorite."

Dean beams at him and holds up a finger. "Wait, you haven't seen the best part." Dean exits the room and comes back with two wine glasses filled with beer and a proud look on his face. "Pretty classy, huh?"

"Not at all," Sam replies, taking his. "Kind of disgusting, actually."

Dean shrugs and sits down, grabbing a roll with one hand and reaching too far over the table for the mashed potato spoon with the other. "Dig in," he says.

Sam stands behind his chair, gripping the back too tightly for a few seconds before rounding it. "Dean, why'd you make all this?"

Dean swallows what should be three bites at once and smiles. "You don't have to eat the wonderful home-cooked meal if you don't want," he says, clearly teasing.

Sam doesn't let him get away with the evasion. "No, it's great. I just want to know why."

"Just trying to make you happy." Dean destroys another piece of bread and continues as if the conversation is over.

But Sam can't let it drop. "You make me happy all the time without sucking up to me." Dean ignores it and goes on eating, so Sam tries another road. "You don't drink anymore. Not since we stopped hunting."

Dean toasts his beer and takes a sip, then gives Sam a 'what are you talking about?' look.

"I mean, not heavily. Not enough to smell like you sweat whiskey."

Dean's eyes dim, like he's coming to a distant realization. "Habit of a lifetime, Sammy. So I've been sneaking a few drops here and there. Sue me."

"When did you start wearing Old Spice?"

"When you fell in love with the guy in the commercials, and I realized I'd never get laid again if I didn't smell like him," Dean replies without missing a beat, but there's something hysterical in the back of his eyes. He's hiding something.

"Why don't we ever talk to Bobby Singer anymore?"

Dean puts his fork down on the plate, so loud it clamors and sounds like it might break. "What's with the 20 questions, Sam?"

"Are we dead?" he asks. "Is this Heaven?"

"No, man, I've told you before this isn—"

"It's bad, then? This isn't real, not any of it."

Dean looks back down at his meal. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think I remember what happened. I was supposed to kill that other Sam, but I was so scared, and he tricked me. _I_ tricked me. I've been lying to myself this whole time. And you, you've been trying to stop me from figuring it out."

"Sam, I just wanna protect you—"

"I have to go back, Dean." Sam stands and walks to the other side of the table, gives Dean a quick kiss, then another, deeper this time, because, even if he does manage to find that other Sam and wake up, he's never going to get to kiss his brother again.

"Sammy, calm down. You're just scaring yourself again. It's okay, we can work through it. Just eat your dinner and we'll go to bed and forget all about this."

"No, I'm always going to hear him. I'm never going to be happy again."

Dean reaches out for Sam and holds him back as he tries to go. "Sam, don't leave me. You promised. You promised, don’t you remember? You said you'd never leave again, I trusted you."

Sam does remember that now, can hear his voice saying it to Dean, can see how vulnerable his brother had looked, how afraid he was that Sam was lying. But it's a fake, like their first kiss and the day they bought the house and every good thing that's ever happened to Sam. It's planted; he's inventing the damn memory to convince himself this is real. It's really pretty pathetic.

"I have to go, Dean. I have to go for my brother."

Dean recoils like Sam slapped him. "I'm your brother," he says, looking right into Sam's face. Not wavering, like Dean wouldn't.

"You're so close," Sam says, brushing a finger over his cheek. Of course he's close. Of course everything else Sam has made up since his wall broke was unconvincing, just the slightest bit off, enough for Sam to notice it and suspect something, even if his guess was way off base. Sam wouldn't know how to make a comfortable life seem convincing, but he knows Dean. Dean is a perfect copy, so perfect Sam couldn't help believing he was real. But that's just because Sam is an expert, knew to replicate Dean's flaws just as much as his virtues, can always tell what Dean would say in response to him. Dean was the only thing that needed to be convincing for Sam to let himself stay here, and his subconscious did a disturbingly good job trapping him.

But this Dean looks at Sam with dark eyes and knows how to be happy without trying. Sam really, really should have known better.

He pushes Dean away instead of taking another kiss and walks double time to the door before he can change his mind or trick himself into forgetting again. Everything is the same as usual when he opens the door, same carefully trimmed lawns, same two cars in the driveway, same dog running in the yard across the street. Sam closes his eyes tight and wills it away, and when he looks out again, the Impala is waiting on a highway that stretches as far as Sam can see. There are thick woods around him, the walls to Sam's perfect white house are made of wood, though the inviting blue shutters on the window are the same.

"Sam, you can stay," Dean says. "We can make this real. I'll try to be good enough, I promise."

Sam does the hardest thing he's ever had to do. He shuts the door on his brother and what they had.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam remembers more the longer he's on the road, like he's literally rewinding. The drive is intermittent now. He enjoyed it before, got sucked into the landscape and the space it put between him and his problems, let it wash away all his responsibilities, all his worrying about finding Dean, until finally he was far enough. Safe. Until his mind decided he could settle down. Now the opposite happens. He thought he was frantic when he left the house—it multiplies as he gets closer to where he left his memories of Hell. All the fear of what he's about to make himself remember, what it will do to him when he wakes up, just how long he's left Dean out there alone, rushes to the surface. It's a lucky thing he doesn't run the car off the road.

Again, he's exhausted and starving by the time he reaches his destination. He doesn't remember the building, but it's the first one he's seen in days, so Sam knows this must be where the other Sam is hiding. He hears crying when he opens the door—loud and hysterical, lonely weeping. Sam knows it's his own crying, and it scares the shit out of him. To think that after all these months, years, however long it's been since he left here, these memories still have that Sam crying like this.

He finds him huddled in the corner of the study, and Sam sees terror reflected in his own eyes. The man shakes his head as he approaches, mutters something that can't possibly be real words. Sam crouches by his side, puts a hand on his shoulder. "Shh," he says. "It's okay."

The other Sam's mouth falls open on an even louder cry. "Why are you here? Why are you here? I told you to leave."

"I know, but. I have to…" Sam hesitates before saying it. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, especially no one who's already been hurt this much. But Sam has to kill him, and that's the end of it. "I need to wake up."

Hell's Sam grabs Sam by the collar and shakes him. "Are you fucking crazy? I told you, you don't want to know. Do you think I was kidding?"

Sam shakes his head. "But Dean," Sam says. "My brother is out there, and he's been suffering for years because of me."

"Your brother," he whimpers, rubbing his face on his knees. "Yeah, I was thinking of him, too. You think he's suffering now?" The man's lips curve into a hideous scowl and he lets out an ugly laugh. It echoes through the empty house. "You think he's suffering because he has to worry about your nap? Wait until he sees you like this."

Sam's stomach turns at the implication. If Sam wakes up like this Sam, he really would be better off asleep. But Dean will never know that. Dean will just keep hating himself. Sam wishes there was a way to tell him just how okay he was and come back to his life here. Maybe there is, but he has to make sure Dean knows first.

"Look, I...I have to." Sam stands up and looks around for the knife, sees the light glinting off it through a window.

"Sam, you're gonna ruin his life if you go out there. You're gonna ruin both of your lives."

Sam picks the knife up and again sits by the other Sam's side. "It's okay," he tells him. "I'm gonna let you off the hook."

Sam grabs his hand. "Don't be stupid, Sam. Don't be stupid, you'll just turn yourself into me. I would give anything to be in your shoes. To be able to make this choice and not have to know. You don't want to. Go back to your brother, man. I gave you a happy life."

"You tried to trick me," Sam accuses. "You were lying to me and you knew it and I believed you."

"You'd thank me, if you knew. But you don't have to. Go ahead and hate me, just don't do something you'll regret. I'm trying to protect all of us."

Sam bites his lip. "I'm sorry. I have to go to Dean," he says again, and then he puts the blade through the other Sam's heart.

It's not the pain that wakes him. It's the screaming.

Sam's been getting torn apart for almost two hundred years and wasn't exactly a stranger to injury before then. He can sleep through a little torture. But the yelling—the yelling is just too much. His throat aches, on top of everything, from the strain. The sound echoes off the walls even louder as it bounces back on him. It's endless. He can't stop it, not with how much everything hurts, but he's sure it's only making things worse.

The smell of sulfur is overwhelming, but that's not new either.

Sam is surrounded by bright orange fire and thick black smoke, and he knows better than to ask the figure at the end of his bed for help. He doesn't know if it's Michael or Lucifer, but it's wearing Dean. Oh God, Sam let them have Dean.

He claps a hand over his mouth to make the shouting stop. The salt in his tears burns his face as much as the flames do. Not that this is news to Sam. He's more demon than they are, and they never forget to remind him of that. He takes a few noxious breaths before attempting to speak. "Don't," he manages. "Please don't. Don't hurt me anymore."

It takes a step closer to him, walking around Sam, and it's not until the angel does that that Sam realizes he's in a bed. Not on a rack. Not dangling from hooks. Not spread out over a mile, aching to put his parts back together but unable to move. Just a plain white bed with clean sheets. Sam doesn't even want to imagine what that means.

The hand that reaches out for him doesn't attack, it brushes across his cheek slowly instead. Too slowly. Too close to sweetly. Sam whimpers and tries to pull away. "It's okay, Sammy, shh."

"No," Sam tells it. "Not this. Please, not this. Please, please."

Sam tries to fight; his muscles are all atrophied from lifetimes in the pit. Everything hurts too much to move, the angels wouldn't have it any other way. But Sam had one good thing, and they could never touch it before. Not Dean, he wants to beg, but he can't say that out loud. Can't let them know how well this is going to work.

"Hey, it's okay. Sam, it's okay," he says, sounding painfully like Sam's brother would at a moment like this. Of course it's going to be convincing, but Sam's not going to be convinced. He's still got some shred of brain buried somewhere. "It's all gonna be better now."

Sam's heart, if he still has one, if it's not sitting in some archangel's stomach at the moment, breaks at that. Sam had a dream that he was out of here. Dean brought him out, pulled him from what Sam was never good enough to save Dean from, and there was open air and running water and there was Dean. Sam had moral scruples over what his body did while he was away, because life was painless, and he had time and clarity of mind to worry about little luxuries like that. The funny thing is, for some reason Sam had actually thought it was real.

They tried to warn him. Told him every day. _There's no escape from Hell. Not for us and not for you._ But he fell for this one. They'd gotten him good. He almost wants to congratulate them.

"Sam, say something."

Sam blinks and realizes he's been staring at space for so long he's begun to see through the fire. That's never happened before. The walls are made of thick metal, they look exactly like a room he'd done time in back on Earth. Sam almost laughs. He'd thought that room was hellish then, could hardly imagine being trapped anywhere worse. Sam really didn't know what problems were before all this started. He'd had it made.

"Please say something."

"Water," Sam says. That's all he can think to say, even though he knows it's the wrong answer and he's only going to get taunted for it. "I need water."

The monster at his bedside lifts his head gingerly, one hand cupping the back as he brings something to Sam's lips. This has happened before; Sam's ready for the taste of blood or the burn of acid or whatever this thing is about to drown him in. What he's not ready for is the chill of ice water that slides down his throat pleasantly. He's not ready for the tiniest curve of Dean's lips as he grabs the cup greedily and swallows the rest in one long sip.

"Now if you could just do that with whiskey, you'd be a real man."

Sam looks up at Dean's face and can't find the trace of a threat in it. He's not looking hard enough, maybe. He really doesn't want to. "Don't," Sam says, his throat much clearer now. "Don't do this, please."

Dean—Lucifer, Michael, not Dean—draws even closer to Sam, a stung expression on his face. Sam flinches, pulls himself back on the bed, putting as much distance between them as he can.

"You can't do that to me, Sam. I can deal with anything you throw at me, but I can't deal with you acting like I'm gonna hurt you. I'm your brother, man. You can't be scared of me. It's not allowed." Sam swallows hard and relaxes a little as Dean pulls his blanket up, avoiding looking him in the eye. "We're gonna…we're gonna work through it, okay? But you gotta take this much at face value. Because I'm not gonna be able to help if you—I need some help here, too."

Sam stares at the man standing over him, searches his face and his eyes and the trembling at the edge of his mouth, and knows. This is his brother; nothing can mimic him so perfectly. "Dean," Sam says, the one syllable breaking on a sob. "Dean, don't let them get you. They're coming, any moment now. Please, please don't let them."

Dean must not know where he is, because he doesn't startle or hide or run from Sam's side. Sam can't imagine how he could miss the fire surrounding them or the burning stench of sulfur or the taste from the uranium the angels leave behind when they attack. It can't be loyalty. Even Dean can't be willing to stay with Sam through what those angels are going to do.

"Shh," Dean says, sitting next to Sam's pillow on the mattress. "Shh, Sammy, no one's gonna get either of us, okay? You're safe, I've got you."

Sam shakes his head. There's no way Sam busted out, and that means Dean is really here with him. In Hell. Because obviously everything needed to get worse.

"Dean, no. You can't be here." Sam tries to shove him away, as if it's his proximity to Sam that's responsible. Maybe it is. Maybe Dean came here for him. God, what an idiot. "You can't be here. Leave. You have to leave. Before they come, Dean. Don't let them get you."

"Sam, listen to me. We are not in Hell. This is not Hell. Sammy," Dean places a hand on Sam's cheek and forces eye contact, "Sammy, look, it's safe. Everything is safe."

Sam grabs for Dean, and he feels solid. Sturdy. Dean's safe, and no one is hurting him, and no one is going to hurt Sam as long as his brother sits right here and shields him. Sam closes his eyes tight and opens them again. The flames die away completely. The smell of sulfur subsides into salt and rust and that Bobby Singer scent Sam is frankly getting sick of. For a moment he thinks all of his organs are exactly where they're supposed to be.

"Really?" he asks. "I'm not in Hell?"

Dean smiles weakly and pushes a hand over Sam's clammy forehead. "You're not in Hell."

Sam trusts Dean. Just because his name is Sam Winchester, and there's not a vein in his body, or a thought in his mind, or a single piece of his tattered excuse for a soul that knows how not to. 

"I'm tired," he whispers, pressing his face into the fabric of his brother's shirt.

Dean puts a hand on the back of Sam's head. "No," he says. "No, you've been sleeping. Stay awake, Sam. Please, stay awake with me."

"I'm tired, Dean," Sam says again. "I don't want to feel like this anymore."

Dean takes a long minute before he responds, and even through the ringing in his ears, Sam can hear how shaky Dean's voice is. "No, it's okay," Dean says. It sounds anything but. "You're gonna sleep it off, and you'll feel fine in a few hours. Nothing happened, okay? Nothing happened to you. It's just in your head, you'll remember when you wake up."

Sam falls asleep against his brother's heartbeat.

_______________________________________________________________

Where Sam is, if any of this can be believed, is the panic room under Bobby's house. The same place he's been stuck a thousand times before, but this time the door is open, letting the stifling air out, and Sam isn't lying in or strapped to a cot as he sweats and hallucinates and cries for help. Not that this makes it any better, but at least it's an effort.

The cot is pulled up right next to Sam's bed, and Sam suspects that the indent on it is now shaped more like Dean than himself. Every time he asks why they're down there, Dean smiles thinly and says, "no angels" before changing the subject. Sam asks the question even more often than he forgets the answer. He's willing to bet anything that "no angels" are the two most beautiful words he's ever heard in his life.

Sam is in a nice bed, a big white one with the fat pillows Dean always used to claim as rightfully his under big brother's law. There's a monitor by the side, a bunch of tubes going in every direction as they snake away from Sam. Sam doesn’t feel the urge to ask if Dean stole them from a hospital. It's not like he doesn't know the answer. It's not like he doesn't appreciate it, wrong means of acquisition be damned.

It's almost pleasant for the first few days. Sam can't do much more than sleep and wake up from his nightmares, and every time he thinks he's waking up in Hell. Anywhere is welcoming when he realizes that's not the case.

Still, he doesn't like it. He never has, and even knowing Dean has nothing but Sam's well-being in mind can't erase that stupid, petty, childish part of him—or maybe it's plain instinct. The room isn't welcoming to him. Sam tells himself it's because he has bad memories here, but Sam has nothing but bad memories, and the worst of them are far, far away from the panic room or anything on Earth. There's just no warm welcome for demons here; maybe Sam is human enough to get through the door, but he'll never be human enough not to feel how much the walls hate him.

"Hey, champ," Dean says, walking in with his arms full of plates, beers tucked under. He stirs up the air around him, shakes Sam out of his thoughts, and almost makes him forget he's unhappy. There's a bright look on Dean's face that Sam almost can't tell is an act. "Hungry?"

Sam closes his eyes and reminds himself that the sharp teeth in his brother's mouth are only in his head. This is not Hell. Not Hell, and Dean is not the devil, and there's no reason for him to feel like he's covered in lava except that he expects it. That works sometimes—it works now. Dean is normal when he looks again, and after a few grudging moments, Sam's skin stops boiling. "Yeah, I guess."

"Brought some sandwiches," Dean says. "And booze, of course." He grins and pauses by the bed, waiting for Sam to take the drinks and free up his arms. Sam does, hissing at the sharp pain that comes with the cold bottles on his skin. Too drastic a change from the heat, but Dean had no way to know that. _It's not really hot, you idiot_ , he reminds himself again. _That didn't really hurt._

Sam sets the beer down next to him, propped against his pillow, and accepts the sandwich Dean holds out to him. He watches Dean dig in before taking a bite, chewing slowly as the food turns to ash on his tongue. "What's in this?" he asks, picking at the sandwich.

"Ham and cheese," Dean says, looking up with another smile. "Is it good? I put extra mayo, like you used to like when you were a kid. I know you never let yourself indulge anymore, but I figure you've been eating out of a tube for a while, you must be starving."

Sam forces himself to swallow. "Oh," he says. "I thought it was—" _my intestines_ "—something else."

Dean's face falters just a bit. "You don't like it? I can make another one."

Sam shakes his head. He's pretty sure anything he tries right now will taste about the same. "It's great. Thanks, Dean."

Dean grins again, setting his drink on the floor and reaching out to ruffle Sam's hair. "No problem."

"You're in a good mood," Sam observes. "Something happen I should know about?"

"You're awake," Dean says simply. "I was starting to think you…" He shrugs. "Just glad you're up. And okay. You seem okay. I didn't think—well, who gives a shit what I thought, right? I was wrong."

Okay. Sam seems okay. He looks out over Dean's shoulder and tries to count the demons waiting on the other side of the room. There must be about 40 or 50 of them. But they're not real, and Sam seems okay. Dean needs him to.

Dean sits up, his eyebrows drawing together. He looks behind him and then back at Sam. "Sammy? You with me?"

"Yes," Sam says, fixing his eyes on Dean. "Yes, I'm okay."

Dean looks at Sam too closely and nods too slowly. Sam can read the skepticism in his expression, but instead of calling him out, Dean smiles again. "Yeah," he says. "You're fine."

Sam feels a nice rush of relief. Dean is pretending, too. That's good, that sounds about right. Sam can do that. "So," he says, scratching at his brain for some kind of conversation topic. Ideally, he would go for something light at a time like this, but then again, it's him and Dean. "What happened with Cas?"

Dean's eyes shift away from Sam. "He…got them." He looks back at Sam. "He got the souls."

Sam lets out a long breath. "Shit."

"Yeah," Dean replies, the word vibrating with laughter. "Shit sounds about right."

"How?"

"I don't know, really. After he," Dean swallows hard, "after he knocked down your wall, we lost track of him for a few hours and by the time we saw him again, he was…" Dean shakes his head. "Something else, man. Not Cas. He said he was God."

"Wow," Sam says, trying to imagine their little angel sidekick half baked on souljuice. "So is he a nice God?"

Dean lifts an eyebrow, smirking at Sam. "I'd say no. First thing he did was nuke the crap out of Raphael—"

"No surprise there," Sam says. "They weren't exactly best friends."

"Then he told me and Bobby to bow down and 'profess our love onto him' or else."

"Yikes."

Dean smiles just a little. "Yeah. Yikes."

"How'd you get away?" Sam asks.

Dean averts his eyes.

Sam's jaw drops. "What? Seriously?"

"Sam—"

"After everything we've been through? After all the shit we've done just so we didn't have to be some angel's bitch, you're on your knees just because _Cas_ says so?"

"Sam, you don't—"

But Sam's not listening. He's shaking with rage and the kind of disappointment he should be too old for. "I went to Hell, Dean. To avoid that. How could you just—? I thought we were willing to die for that. Both of us."

"You think I did it because I was scared to die? You really think I wouldn't have told him where to stick it if it had been on me?" Dean is yelling now. At Sam, and Sam thinks he sees his brother's eyes welling up, and very suddenly, he feels like crying too. "You were here alone, Sam. And I didn't know when you were gonna wake up, but I knew what you'd be dealing with when you did. And I didn't…I couldn't, Sammy. Wasn't gonna leave you alone because I was too stubborn to..."

Sam sets his plate on his lap and reaches out, taking Dean's chin in his hand and forcing his brother to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, Dean. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I wasn't thinking."

Dean shakes his head, refusing to hold the gaze. "I knew you'd be disappointed. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't."

Sam watches Dean, shame seeping through him, making him feel twice as heavy. "I should have been there," he says. "I should have been there to help you stop him, Dean. Instead I was..." 

Happy. While Dean was facing death and sacrificing himself and needing Sam's help, Sam was playing house. And he made _Dean_ feel guilty.

"Sam, you couldn't help that you were—"

"Yes, I could. I should have been there."

"It doesn't matter. He'd already gotten into purgatory by the time we reached him. You couldn't have stopped him. All it would have done was gotten us all killed faster."

"At least we would have gone in together," Sam says, punching the sheets lightly. "And with a little dignity."

"Never had much dignity to begin with, Sammy," Dean answers warmly, taking Sam's hand and smoothing it out. Sam looks up at him, sees a tiny smile at the corner of his brother's mouth. "You remember that time in high school when I—"

"I've spent the last decade trying to forget." Sam shakes his head. "And now the mental picture is as vivid as the day it happened. Thanks for nothing, asshole."

Dean grins, pushing his thumb over Sam's pulse. "The skirt really was pretty liberating, though."

Sam laughs a little, and Dean seems to take some strength from that. He sits up and his grip on Sam's hand loosens. Sam manfully resists the urge to pull him back.

"Anyway, that's that. Cas has been stirring up all kinds of trouble since then, but he's stayed pretty clear of us. Bobby's been trying to track him, find a way to put a stop to it."

"And you?"

Dean smiles weakly, avoids the question. "It started out with irregular weather, just like Lucifer. Tornadoes, a few earthquakes. Droughts in Seattle, blizzards in Arizona. But it's getting worse. More obvious. More dangerous, too."

"Cas did all that?"

"I'm telling you, it's not Castiel anymore, Sam. Last month, a volcano popped up out of nowhere, wiped Las Vegas clean off the map. Cas was never that—"

"Last month?" Sam asks. "I've been out for a month?"

Dean barks a laugh and lets go of Sam altogether. He scratches the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Sammy, you've been out a whole lot longer than that."

Sam swallows hard, stares down at his hands on the white sheet. "How long?"

"It doesn’t matter," Dean says. "You don't need to worry about it right now, okay? Let's just take it one thing at a time."

Sam thinks of the way time blurred together for him and Dean in that dream world, and his heart seizes up. God, it felt like forever in there, a whole lifetime. Dean's been ignoring Castiel's threat for Sam's sake. Going against every instinct, everything Dad taught them or Dean cared about so he could sit here and tell Sam to wake up. It could have been one month or nine or years. Dean's got gray in his hair Sam swears wasn't there before. "How long, Dean?" he insists. "How long have I been in here?"

"Six months," Dean says after a pause. Sam feels his eyebrows drawing together, and Dean must guess what he's staring at, because he looks up and touches his fingers to his temples. "It's been a rough six months." 

_Six months_ of his life Sam is never getting back. "I don't want to be in here anymore," Sam says, sitting up and pushing the covers away. The machine by his bed begins to beep out of control, and Sam tries to tug the tubes and needles out. The plate Sam had been balancing falls to the floor and shatters, most of Sam's sandwich going with it. It's joined by another less than half a minute later when Dean reacts.

Dean leaps to his feet and pushes Sam back, restraining him until he's taken a few breaths. "Jesus, do you see why I didn't wanna tell you?" Dean looks Sam over, begins to carefully restore everything to its correct setting.

"I don’t need my heart rate monitored, Dean," Sam snaps, but he doesn't try to remove the tubes again. "I need to get out of this room."

"Shh," Dean says. "That's fine, Sam. That's okay. We can do that. But you gotta take it easy, at least until we know how…"

Sam nods and holds his arm out so that Dean can unhook the hospital equipment the right way, trying his best to stay still and calm. He hates this room. He hates it so much, and just the idea that he's spent more time here than he has almost anywhere on Earth is making him sick.

"Hey, Sam. You there?"

Sam realizes Dean's shaking him and blinks until he can focus his attention on his brother. His feet are dangling off the side of the bed, and he looks down to discover that Dean has finished taking all the tubes out.

"Do you think you can walk okay?"

Sam has no fucking idea, but he nods the affirmative and waves Dean away as he plants each of his feet on the ground. Everything seems to be working, so he pushes off and finds that he can stand.

Dean holds an arm out and backs up, ready to catch Sam if necessary. Sam scowls, puts in the token protest about how he's not an idiot and can walk without Dean helping him, and secretly feels as shocked as Dean looks when he makes it all the way to the door without incident.

"Good, see?" Dean says brightly, patting Sam on the back. "You're just fine."

Sam decides not to mention that every step feels like sharp teeth sinking into his feet, dragging him down.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam stays in the guest room upstairs at Bobby's for three days and two nights. The house has been covered in as much anti-angel mojo as Dean and Bobby have managed to dig up since Sam went to Lala Land, but Dean still doesn't seem to think it's as safe as the panic room. Which makes no fucking sense. That room is only built to stop demons, and Sam is pretty sure Dean knows as well as he does that any Godproofing they've found is for shit, anyway. If Castiel wants to get at Sam, Castiel will get at Sam. Sam's taking comfort in the fact that he's kind of small potatoes for Castiel to bother worrying about at this point.

He turns over, the blankets suffocating him until he wakes up enough to shake the nightmare away, remember that he's safe now. Dean is sitting on the other bed, a shotgun in his lap, his face resting in both his hands. He looks exhausted.

"Dean," Sam says. "Why don't you go to sleep?"

"You don't scream, you know. Not like I did when I got back."

Sam sits up a little, pressing his palms into his eyes to try to keep his headache from building. "What are you talking about?"

"When you have nightmares. You just lie there, all still. It's quieter than when you were in the coma even. You look…"

"Dead?" Sam offers.

"Shut up, Sam."

"It's what you were thinking." Sam laughs a little. "Anyway, shouldn't me being quiet make it easier for you to sleep?"

"What if you have a nightmare and I don't wake up?" Dean asks, his words rushed.

"I'll live," Sam replies. "Probably."

Dean shakes his head. "Just need some coffee," he says, standing up and swaying on his feet.

Sam reaches out, and Dean pauses in the doorway to hear him out. "I'm awake now. You can go to bed for a few hours. I won't go anywhere."

"I'm good. Bobby should be home tomorrow. I'll sleep then."

"Look, man, I get it, I do. But you're kind of a worthless babysitter like this, and you're stressing me the fuck out. Just sleep."

Dean bites his bottom lip. "I can't, Sam. All right? I literally can't."

"What do you mean you can't? Lie down. You're so zapped I'm sure you'll be out before your head hits the pillow."

"Bobby did a spell in the panic room. Like a dreamcatcher, I guess. It was supposed to protect you from nightmares originally, but you weren't really dreaming, so." Dean shrugs. "It helped me. Every time I try falling asleep up here, I end up right back in Hell."

"You haven't dreamed about Hell in years," Sam points out.

"It's not my Hell I'm having nightmares about," he answers, meeting Sam's eyes. "Point is, I don't know the spell, and I can't sleep without it. So until Bobby gets back, all I'm going to do is scare us both and be exhausted either way. I'd rather at least stay on guard."

Sam frowns. "I'm sorry I made you move me up here, Dean, I didn't know."

"Don't apologize. You weren't happy in there. You're priority. I'm not anywhere near as—"

"I get it. I'm probably not in good shape." Dean snorts, and Sam reflects on everything his brother's just told him. "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"What did you mean I wasn't really dreaming?"

"You weren't in your dreamscape. I checked a few times." When Sam's only response is to look confused, Dean continues, "After we got away from Cas, the first thing I tried was that dream root crap. Thought maybe I could get in your head, find out what the holdup was. But you weren't there. There wasn't anything, it was just a dorm room with Jessica's picture on the desk." Dean looks guilty for a moment. "Anyway, I didn't feel right poking around in your head if you weren't there, so I left."

"Weird," says Sam. "I was definitely dreaming. I guess it was, I dunno, deeper in my head or something."

Dean nods absently, his jaw tightening. "Were they bad dreams, Sam?"

Sam thinks of their quiet little house and Dean pressing their lips together and all those years without Hell and almost wants to cry. "They were beautiful."

"Oh," Dean says. He tries to smile. "That's good."

"I didn't want to wake up," Sam adds, wishing he could take it back when Dean's smile slips a little.

"Why did you?"

Sam shrugs. "You asked me to."

"But you're glad you did?" Dean's eyes widen. "You're glad because it wasn't real, right?"

"Yeah," Sam lies. "Of course."

Dean smiles again, a real smile for the first time since Sam woke up. "It's all gonna be better soon, Sam. You'll be fine after a few days. And I'll never let anything get you again."

Sam thinks maybe Dean really can protect him, but that isn't enough to turn time back and get rid of Lucifer and Michael. It can't make them stop hurting Sam any more than it can put him back together. Nothing exists that can. Sam is Humpty Dumpty sitting in a frying pan, there's nothing his brother's admirable efforts can do about that. He smiles anyway, for Dean's sake.

_______________________________________________________________

"So he's awake, huh?"

"Sure is," Dean replies, sounding more than a little smug. Sam thinks maybe Dean's hand is on his thigh, too, only Lucifer ripped that leg off an hour ago, so Sam can't really feel it.

"How's he, uh, is he okay?" Bobby asks.

Everything they say comes to Sam through a filter. He can hear it, on some level he can even follow it, but he's impressed at how calm they are. Dean's been bleeding out for 45 minutes, and Bobby's right side got chewed off by a hellhound the moment he walked through the door. They must be stronger than him. All Sam can think about is his leg.

"It's touch-and-go right now. Sometimes he's fine. Sits and talks to me like he never left." Dean's fingers begin to rot off as Sam stares down at them, and Sam thinks it's a shame. He used to do a lot of good with those hands. "There's nightmares, of course, though he won’t tell me about them. Sometimes he just starts screaming while he's in the middle of something. Can't leave him alone for a damn minute—yesterday I caught him holding one of your steak knives to his chest like it was the only good thing he'd seen in years." There's a long pause, and Dean's hand tightens, making Sam wonder if maybe his leg is still there after all. "And sometimes you can just tell he's far away."

Something snaps in front of Sam's face, and Sam shakes his head, focusing on his brother's hand waving in front of him. "Hey, Sam. You with me?"

Sam looks over at Dean, nodding. Dean points to Bobby and Sam tries to smile as he turns to face the other man. He must not be doing it right, because Bobby looks away immediately, avoiding both Sam and Dean's eyes. "Welcome back, Sam," Bobby says, clearly upset. "Good to see you're...awake."

"There's good news," Sam tells him reassuringly. He's been here the longest; Dean and Bobby are depending on him to tell them how to deal with it. "The angels will fix that once you've bled to death. It's not that bad after a while."

Bobby's face contorts. Confusion, or disbelief, or maybe he's mad at Sam. He probably thinks Sam is lying. Sam doesn’t know really, reading faces is hard. The angels and their demons don't have expressions, just bloodthirsty little smiles.

Dean laughs like it's a joke. "No one's bleeding to death today, Sam."

Sam smiles. Dean never used to be an optimist. It's kind of cute, but Sam has to stamp it out before Lucifer does. Lucifer won’t be gentle about it. "Shh, Dean, it's okay. You don't have to lie to me."

"Sammy, come on. We talked about this, remember? You're not in Hell."

"No, of course not," Sam murmurs. He holds his eyes shut and opens them, and his leg is just fine and Bobby is fine and, best of all, everything except for the look on Dean's face seems to be okay, too. "Oh," he says, still a little out of it. "I'm not."

"No, no you're not." Dean jostles Sam's thigh playfully. "I've got you. You're fine."

"I'm fine," he says. "Bobby, don't worry. Dean says I'm fine."

Bobby frowns. He's not as good at pretending as Dean is. Sam resents him a little for that. "You both look tired," he says, standing up. "I'll go cast that spell on the room."

Bobby leaves quickly, like Sam's something to get away from. Sam pushes closer to Dean, hides his face against his brother's shirt. "What'd I do wrong?"

Dean puts one hand in Sam's hair and says nothing.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam never sees what he expects in the mirror. Sometimes it's better, sometimes Sam's convinced his skin is burning, so Dean takes him to see that he's imagining it. The reflection, while thinner than he remembers being, and certainly closer to yellow than he used to be, is not on fire or missing body parts or any of the other horrible things he's anticipating.

But there are days like this, days when Sam just wants to wash his face and go to sleep, when he ends up looking at himself through one eye and can see the other dangling down against his cheek in the glass.

He lets out a shout, and Dean is through the door in seconds, holding Sam up, one hand on his chest, the other circling on his back. "Sammy, hey. What's going on?"

Sam points to his reflection, but Dean only glances for a second before turning back to Sam.

"Sam, listen to me. Look closer, okay? There is nothing wrong with you." He reaches up to pull Sam's hand away from his face and squeezes Sam's fingers. "You look good, Sam. Well, you know, as good as you can."

Sam stares down at his brother, at the worry written all over his face and tries not to think about another time and place, when Dean used to look at Sam in the mirror with dark eyes and tell him he was beautiful. Sam reaches out, runs a finger along his brother's jaw and lets out a long breath. "Promise me," he says. "If I fall asleep again, Dean, don't make me wake up."

Dean slides his hand up to Sam's shoulder. "Let's go see what's on TV."

Sam holds onto the sink, glares at Dean in the mirror. "Promise, Dean. You have to promise."

Dean's shoulders slump a little as he sighs. "Yeah, Sam. I promise."

Sam's surprised by how much he looks like he means it.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam feels the difference now that it's been pointed out. Something washes over him when he walks into the bedroom, finds Dean already out cold after days without sleeping. It's nothing strong enough to pinpoint, but it's there. A loosening of his too-tense muscles, a slight fog in his mind, clouding out some of the Hell and making him too intent on sleep to remember to be scared of it. Bobby's ritual did wonders for the atmosphere, and Sam wonders as he passes by Dean toward his own bed if maybe it'll work on him like it's supposed to. Sure, he had nightmares in the panic room when he first woke up, but Hell was fresh then. Now? Feeling the spell work on him, watching Dean turn in his bed, smack his lips like a child, and mumble something with a happy sound? Sam can't imagine it won't work on him, too.

It's easy enough to fall asleep. It's easy enough to think it worked, because Sam doesn't go to Hell in his nightmare, Sam goes to the one place in the world he can't imagine Hell touching. Sam goes home, to his and Dean's white suburban house and their green lawn and a big, round moon shining off his and Dean's cars. Sam goes home, and now Dean knows not to wake him. Now Sam can keep this forever, and forget real because real means Hell and watching his brother fade a little more everyday Sam's not better.

If he looked closely, turned his head just a little to the right, Sam would have caught a warning. He would have seen the blue shutters on his windows hanging loosely, the only thing out of place in an otherwise idyllic picture. But Sam averts his eyes quickly enough to convince himself he imagined it and doesn't look again. Nothing is out of place here, not ever. Sam is safe.

He hesitates at the door, unsure of whether to knock or not. He aches to see Dean—not his brother Dean, maybe, but _his_ Dean, who will smile better than Sam's ever seen anyone smile and tug him down for a kiss—on the threshold, asking Sam where the hell he's been and why he left just as dinner was ready. But he also wants to surprise him, find Dean sprawled out on the couch or standing in the kitchen having a glass of water and be the one to kiss Dean first. The door is open, just a crack, when Sam gets there, so that settles the debate.

He pushes it open slowly, quietly. The house is dark, except for the moonlight—suddenly a little too bright. It shines on every surface, eerie, highlighting a scene too terrible for even Sam to accept. Every single thing in the room has been torn apart, thrown out of place, broken. The couch is bleeding white stuffing onto the floor. Sam steps forward and hears a crack, looks down to find a framed picture under his shoe. Sam sees only the corner of it, it's him on the edge of the Grand Canyon, happy, and Sam remembers what the rest should look like, the part hidden under his foot. His arm around Dean; Sam looks away, doesn't want to know if the picture is still the same underneath.

This can't be happening, he tells himself. This is home and home is safe and Hell does not come here. There's a voice scratching along the edge of this assertion, the half of him that remembers that he blew it—this is still in his head and now Hell is everywhere. Sam pushes that voice down.

He calls out his brother's name and gets no response. No scream or cry for help, no monster laughing before attacking; Sam breathes a little easier. But there's no echo of his name back, no obnoxious big brother pride in Dean's voice. _Do you like my redecorating? Scared you, didn't I? You're such a girl sometimes, Sammy._ There's no response at all, so Sam braces himself and heads for the stairs.

As soon as he reaches the top, he sees the faint glow of a lamp from their room, knows it's the one on Dean's side of the bed. He's come home to this a thousand times before. Sometimes he runs late at work, and Dean always waits up for him. His heart leaps to his throat and he rushes to the room to find his brother.

The relief he feels when he finds Dean propped up in bed with a book sitting ignored in his hands, his eyes closed, makes Sam want to cry. But that might wake Dean up, and Dean would make fun of him for it, and everything is going to be okay now, so things like that have to start mattering again.

Sam walks to the side of the bed his brother is waiting on and shakes him, trying to wake him up. Dean doesn't stir. Sam sees something wet on his neck and reaches out to touch it. Dean's eyes shoot open as soon as Sam's fingers make contact, and his neck suddenly rips, a river of blood pouring out as Dean reaches for Sam with terror in his eyes. He tries to say something, but he can't talk through the slit in his throat. Sam tries to jump back, but Dean holds him with a steely grip.

"Dean," Sam says. "Oh God, oh God, Dean."

Dean continues to choke on—fuck, on his own blood. Sam picks their quilt up, presses it to his brother's throat, as if it's going to help now to soak up the blood. At the rate Dean is draining, he should have been dead before Sam ever got home.

Finally, the quilt pressed to Dean's wound, he manages to force out two words. "Why, Sam?" Dean asks, eyes fixed on Sam's and Sam wants to turn away, just knows he's going to be sick, but he's compelled to stare back at his brother. "Why did you do this to me, Sam? Why?"

"I didn't mean to," Sam says, as if that's going to make it any better. "Dean, I didn't mean to."

"Why Sam?"

Sam starts awake, pulled into Dean's chest, rocking back and forth. "Sammy, wake up. Sam, shh, it's okay. Just a nightmare. It's just a nightmare."

Sam lashes out, terrified, and Dean lets go, sitting back with a stung expression. Sam stares at his throat—clean, white, unmutilated. The sheets are not soaked in blood, just hot tears from where Sam's face was pressed into his pillow case. Sam reaches for him, presses a finger to Dean's throat and sobs out in relief. "Dean," he says. "Dean."

"It's okay, Sam. You're okay now."

"I'm not." Sam shakes his head and pushes Dean away when he tries to wrap his arm around Sam again. "You couldn't just leave me alone? I was safe. Why didn’t you leave me alone?"

Dean stops dead, freezes and stares at Sam, and Sam knows he'll want to apologize for this when the sun is up tomorrow and it's too late to take it back, but right now he means it. "I didn't know," Dean finally responds, his voice cracking the same as Sam's. "I wish I'd known, I'd—just tell me what to do. Sam, tell me how to make up for it."

Sam wonders which of the two answers that rush to his mind (kiss me, kill me) would break Dean's heart faster. He finally lets Dean get closer, curls up against his brother's chest and mumbles, "I just want to go home, Dean. That's all I want."

Dean sits quietly for a long time, hand moving over Sam's back unconsciously, and then suddenly he pats Sam and smiles when Sam looks up at him. "C'mon," he says. "Grab your pillow and the blanket if you want."

"Where're we going?" Sam asks.

"Home," Dean says. "Or something like that."

He grabs one of Sam's hands and pulls sheets off the bed with the other, and Sam takes his pillow as instructed, follows Dean blindly. They go downstairs, creep out of Bobby's house, and then Dean lets go of Sam, reaches for the pillow instead and tucks it under his arm once Sam's handed it over. 

He walks right up to the Impala and unlocks it with one hand, the other piled high with the things they stole off Sam's bed. Dean crawls in, leaving Sam standing outside, still completely fucking lost. "Dean, what're you—?"

Dean comes back out a moment later and motions Sam forward. The pillow is tucked up on one door, the blanket laid out under it in a makeshift bed. Sam stopped being able to sleep comfortably in the backseat 15 years ago, but Dean is grinning wide like it's a great idea, anyway.

"I don't fit," Sam says, taking a tentative step forward. "Can we go back inside, Dean? It's…" _Creepy_ , Sam thinks. Bobby's yard is nothing but rusting skeletons as far as the eye can see, and in the dark the edges all look too sharp.

Dean gets out of the car, frowning slightly, and walks right up to Sam. "Sam, try it for me, okay?"

Sam lets Dean guide him forward, but as soon as he's relaxing into the car, his heart seizes up. He can't go back to sleep, he's not ready to face what he'll see again. He tries to sit up and Dean holds him down, palm pressed flat against Sam's chest. "I can't, don't make me."

Dean sighs. "Sam, you've hardly slept in weeks."

There's a reason for that, but Sam knows he doesn't need to say as much. Anyway, he's hopeless. Dean gives him one big brother look and Sam is easing down onto his pillow, letting Dean tuck the blanket around him. He's sure he'll regret it, but he nods anyway and watches Dean smile just a bit as he closes the door.

Outside, Sam can see him drawing something in chalk on the car's windows, some sigil Sam's seen scribbled on every wall since he woke up. Sam knows that means something, that Dean wouldn't draw on the Impala for just anyone, but he can't think straight enough to really get it. The chalk makes a clacking sound against the window and Sam is so tired and all he can worry about is Dean leaving him out here. But when the sound stops, the door to the driver's seat opens and Sam feels Dean squeeze his hand once he's gotten in.

Dean starts the car, music playing low, and as soon as it's driving, Sam remembers all the years he spent like this, sleeping while Dad drove them across the country and Dean sat up in the passenger's seat with a map open on his lap. It's a warm memory, stronger than Hell, and Sam doesn't know when he falls asleep, but he wakes up the next morning parked on the side of the road, Dean's head thrown back as he snores. Sam realizes he'd forgotten until then what it feels like to have a good night's sleep.

Bobby calls Dean's cell about an hour after Sam wakes up. Dean manages to go right on snoozing through the hair metal blasting from his phone, so Sam decides he needs the sleep, swipes the phone and steps out of the car to answer it.

Dean's just waking up when Sam is getting back into the Impala fifteen minutes later, gives Sam a side glance as he wipes his mouth. "Why'd you steal my phone, sticky fingers?"

Sam laughs at him, hands it back. "Bobby called."

Dean makes an amused noise. "Guess he was wondering where the hell we got to," Dean says, yawning halfway through so Sam only knows what he says on instinct.

"Yeah. Said I didn't know where we were but that we were okay."

"Mmm," Dean says, opening and closing his eyes a few times. "What'd he say to that?"

"That we're idjits."

"No surprise there," Dean says with a quiet chuckle. "God, I wish I'd parked next to a Starbucks."

"Where _are_ we, anyway?"

"Somewhere in Iowa. Near Missouri, I'd bet."

"Jesus, Dean," says Sam. "You drove all the way to Missouri?"

Dean sits up, patting at his jeans for his keys. "I said near."

"What the hell'd you do that for?"

"I meant to turn around after an hour or so but," Dean shrugs, "it was working. You seemed to be okay, and I guess I lost track of time."

"Hmm," Sam replies.

Dean sticks the keys in the ignition and the car begins to sing quietly as it turns on. "Guess we should get back to Bobby's, then."

Sam fidgets. "I told Bobby we're not coming back."

Dean stops before he finishes pulling the car back onto the road. "You told Bobby what?"

"I checked and our duffels are still in the back. Nothing at Bobby's we'll really miss, not unless we don't do laundry for like a month."

"Yeah, but Sam, we have nowhere else to sta—"

"I wanna hunt," Sam says, voice as firm as he can manage.

Dean blinks a few times. "Okay, _what_?"

"You know. Saving people? Hunting things?"

"Don't be cute," Dean replies. He starts driving again, just to keep himself busy, Sam's willing to bet. "I…look, no offense, Sam, but are you crazy?"

"Yes? Obviously?"

Dean aims a flat look at him. "Not funny."

"Not trying to be."

"We can’t hunt," Dean says, like that's that.

"I can't hunt, you mean. You don't think I can handle it."

Dean hesitates, finally slams a hand on the steering wheel. "Goddamn it, Sam. You can't, okay? You can't wash your face without freaking out, what makes you think it's a good idea to go chasing after monsters?"

"You're the one who keeps saying I'm okay, Dean."

Dean's fingers tighten, go from pink to white on the steering wheel as the blood drains out. "You're getting there," he says, and maybe Sam was too busy being convinced it wasn't true all the other times to hear how much Dean doesn't believe it, either. He can hear it now.

"I think it'll help."

"Based on what?"

Sam smiles. "I don't know. Based on last night, I think. All I do know is I fell asleep thinking I wanted to die." Dean flinches, but Sam stays steadfast. "And I woke feeling like maybe I have a shot at functioning again. I think it's 'cause I remembered what it was like before."

"Taking a nap in a car is not the same thing as—"

"Yeah, I fucking know that, Dean. I'm not stupid just because I'm missing a few marbles."

"I didn't say that," Dean says softly, turning to look at Sam with a pleading look. "C'mon, Sammy, you know I didn't—"

Sam sighs, sitting back, laughing a little on the inside, because he never thought he'd miss the days when Dean would have responded to an open invitation like _I'm not stupid_ with all the malicious enthusiasm of a ten-year-old bully. "Dean, please?"

Dean looks pointedly at the road and his shoulders tense to betray his easy expression. "Yeah, all right, Sam. But one thing goes wrong—one little thing—and I am driving both of our asses back to Bobby's."

Sam grins. "Great. I got us a case while I was on the phone."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Everyone's against me," he murmurs. But he almost sounds happy when he adds, "Give me the run down, you stubborn brat."

_______________________________________________________________

The hunt goes well. Or just about as well as a hunt can go at this point. It's a standard salt and burn, and they hit a snag five minutes after the ghost shows up, but it's not because the ghost scares Sam. They haven't since he was still a kid, hell, that's the whole reason they chose this hunt to begin with. Training wheels. If a ghost is too much for Sam to handle, anything will be.

But it's not the ghost. It's when the ghost gets too close, and Sam hits a cold spot. He should have thought of this, he's been hunting his whole life, he knows what happens when a ghost gets close. There's no excuse for just how much this never crossed his mind.

She's advancing on him, pasty-faced smile of glee when she sees Sam frozen with fear. She must think it's her he's scared of. She must think she's won. Hell, Sam is pretty sure for a moment that she has.

He pulls it together in time. Stoops to pick up the shotgun he dropped, fires rock salt into her chest, and runs across the room to where Dean is flattened by furniture to pick his brother up off the floor. Dean's breathing is labored, and he looks terrified, but from the way he's staring at Sam, it's not because of his own pain.

"Come on, we have to get that hair sample and burn it," Sam says as soon as he's sure Dean's on his feet and good to move around a bit.

Dean grabs the shoulder of Sam's jacket and tugs him back. "Sam—"

"We'll talk about it after the ghost is dead, okay?"

Sam doesn't give Dean a chance to answer, so the conversation ends with a long, ragged sigh as Dean begins to follow him.

They waste the spirit pretty soon after, and Sam buys a little time by pretending to fall asleep in the car. But as soon as they're in the motel, Dean locks the door and turns to Sam with a sorry expression.

"We're going back to Bobby's," he says.

"No, Dean. We're not." Sam watches Dean sit, lowering himself slowly. He lifts his shirt just enough for Sam to see the cut slicing up the side of him and curses under his breath.

"You froze, Sam. You _froze_. Some D-list vengeful spirit's coming at you and you freak out. I'm sorry but you're not ready for this."

"It wasn't the spirit, Dean."

"Oh?" Dean asks, wincing as he tries to stand up. "Then what was it?"

Sam gestures for Dean to stay still, and Dean rolls his eyes before obeying. "I have it under control," he says.

Dean watches him as he digs through Dean's duffel for first aid, a half-furious, half-amused smile on his lips. "Yeah, you were just admiring how pretty she was."

"She was cold," Sam says, pulling a chair up next to Dean's and sitting. Dean tugs his shirt off, angling his body so Sam will be able to put in stitches. Sam gets to work and adds quietly, "Lucifer was cold, too."

Sam feels Dean's breath stutter under his fingers, but he's not sure if it's a reaction to the needle or to what Sam said. They're both quiet while Sam patches Dean up. Sam thinks of saying something to break the silence, wishes he'd thought to turn the TV on before they started this. Instead it's awkward, and Sam can see Dean's brain going into overdrive even as he tries to school his features.

It's not until Sam pours the last shot of alcohol over the stitches and Dean stands up that either of them says anything.

"You're sure this is what's best for you, Sammy?" Dean asks. "It doesn't have to be."

"Dean," Sam answers, "go brush your teeth."

_______________________________________________________________

Sam doesn't know where they come from, but he wakes up three days and two states later to a bottle of prescription pills on his nightstand. He sits up, blinking at the bright orange container, picks them up and shakes them.

"Morning," Dean says. He's standing over his duffel, digging for something in a white towel and nothing else. The room is thick with steam coming from the bathroom, because it's too small and Dean never got the lesson about sharing hot water, not even to make the day just a bit easier on his traumatized little brother.

Dean's been tiptoeing around, doing every nice thing he can think of for Sam since he woke up, and it’s been making Sam uncomfortable. He isn't particularly in the mood for any temperature extremities, hot or cold, so he isn’t actually that upset. It's the lack of thought that counts.

"Nice to see you're back to making our entire room smell like mold," he says, holding the pills up. "What's this?"

"Christmas present," Dean says with a grin. "Picked them up at the local pharmacy while I was on the breakfast run."

"It's not Christmas," Sam replies. And then the really important part hits him. "There's breakfast?"

"I ate yours," Dean replies. "And mine. Good stuff!"

Sam shakes his head and puts the pills back on the nightstand. "You'd better be lying."

Dean finds the boxers and shirt he's been looking for, and Sam is very good, manages to turn away without trying to peek as Dean gets dressed.

"Naw, there's breakfast in the fridge since you took so damn long to wake up," Dean says from behind him as Sam stands and begins to pad toward the half foot of counter space and mini fridge that passes for a kitchen in their lives. He bends down and grabs the handle before Dean's hand is covering Sam's, stopping him from opening it.

"Dude, what do you want? I'm hungry." He looks over and regrets it, sees Dean watching at him, serious and worried. Sam knows where this is going.

Dean takes Sam's hand away from the fridge and presses the bottle into his palm. "You take them with food, Sammy. I looked it up before—"

"Before you stole them from someone who actually needed them?" Sam snaps. "I'm not crazy, Dean."

"Of course you are," he replies calmly. "Of course we both are. Look, Sam, it’s not that big a deal, okay? I faked a prescription. I didn't steal them from anyone. I got this idea a while ago."

"There's no hunt in this town, is there?"

Dean smiles weakly. "Had to get you here to pick them up, didn't I?"

"How could you not talk to me about something like this?" Sam frowns. "What, am I that pathetic to you? I can't even be consulted about my own damn life?"

"I'm not going to force you to take them." Dean's voice is measured and Sam might be imagining how close his brother seems to snapping. "It was an idea, Sam. Just an idea. If I found a spell for this, you'd let me try that, wouldn't you?"

Grudgingly, Sam nods.

"So why's it so different with a few pills? What if this is all it takes? Think of it, you could stop hallucinating and stop thinking of Lucifer and…" Dean licks his lips. "Can't you just try them for me?"

Sam does. Sam does and Dean thinks they work and Sam doesn’t know how to correct him. He stays on the meds for a week and a half. During that time, he doesn’t wake Dean up with his nightmares, doesn't freeze on hunts—doesn't do much of anything.

He gets his brother back.

Dean thinks he's all better, thinks Sam is just some regular headcase when really crazy would be a relief to Sam. Normal people can go crazy. Normal people can survive crazy. Sam's problems are outside the realm of science. All the pills do are slow his brain down too much to react. He's scared out of his fucking wits and he can't even pull it together enough to scream.

"When are you going to tell him I'm here?"

Sam stares at the diner table in front of him. Does not look up. Don't look up.

"Can't just stare at the table forever," Lucifer teases.

"I'm not hungry," Sam says in a rush. "That's why I'm not eating. I'm not hungry."

"You've gotta be, Sammy," Dean says easily. "You didn't eat enough yesterday, either."

"Mind your own business," Lucifer tells Dean. "Your brother's even bossier than mine," he says in a confidential tone, like he and Sam are old buddies. "You remember my brother, don't you? He's still chewing on little Adam."

"Shut up," Sam says.

"Uh, all right," Dean answers. Sam hears his brother's fork scraping the plate across the table. "Just didn't want you to offend our lovely waitress. Make her think the food wasn't good."

"Aww, look," Lucifer says. He's wearing Sam's face. Always Sam's face. He's wearing Sam's jealousy, too. "He thinks she's pretty. Bet he's gonna fuck her, Sammy. Leave you here to drool on yourself."

Sam finally looks up. The woman at the end of the table has long brown hair and a sweet face. She looks smart, not like the kind of girl who follows guys like Dean to alleys. Then again, who the fuck wouldn't follow Dean?

"Can I get you anything else?" she asks, ducking her head a bit and smiling at Sam.

Across the table, Dean is grinning wide. "My brother's just shy," he says.

Sam shakes his head. "I'm fine, thanks."

The girl turns to leave and Sam's eyes dodge back to Dean. Dean, not Lucifer, though it's an effort to keep his eyes trained away from the threat. "She likes you," Dean says. "She must be crazy. You should get her number."

"Got all the crazy I can handle," Sam says. "I'm hungry."

Dean lifts one eyebrow. "Well, you've got a plate of perfectly good, untouched food in front of you."

"I don't want to eat until he leaves."

Dean's face falls. "Until who leaves, Sam?"

Sam's mouth falls open a little and he tries to stutter out a response. "I didn't say—"

Dean leans in. "Sam. Do you see Lucifer right now?"

Sam swallows hard and nods.

"Where is he?"

"He's sitting right next to you," Sam says. "He looks just like me."

Dean looks to the side, maybe out of instinct. Sam knows Dean isn't expecting to see Lucifer, and, somewhere deep down, Sam also knows there's a perfectly good reason for that.

"Okay," Dean says, rubbing his hand over his face. "Okay, Sam. Just." He slides out of the booth, Lucifer vanishing in a cloud of smoke as Dean moves through him, and pulls his wallet out. He leaves way too many bills on the table, but Sam figures the waitress deserves that much. He can imagine the hurt look on her face when she realizes Dean left without her, and she seemed much too nice not to get a consolation prize.

Sam follows when Dean pulls him up and out, folds into the front seat of the Impala just as easily. Sam feels like cardboard and has for days.

"How long have you been seeing him?" Dean asks when he gets behind the wheel.

Sam presses his forehead against the window. There are drops of water from rain stuck to it, and Sam watches them race down instead of answering his brother.

"God dammit, Sam," Dean slaps the wheel, "answer me."

"Two hundred," Sam says. "Forty something. Fifty? Years. A long time. Look at the little guys go," he says, pointing to water drops.

"No, I mean." Dean is a flurry of nervous movement in the corner of Sam's eye, but luckily, Sam hasn’t been easy to agitate in a week and a half. He's feeling pretty calm. Just watching the water and wondering if they'll get back to the motel before Lucifer pops into the backseat. "Jesus, Sam. The pills. I thought they were working. How long have they not been working?"

Dean slides his hand onto Sam's thigh, and Sam wakes up for the first time in a long time. He looks at his brother, his mind clear enough for the moment to realize he's as scary to Dean right now as Lucifer is to him.

"Depends on how we're judging success."

"The visions. The nightmares. _Lucifer._ How long were they gone?"

"Oh!" Sam says, smiling. Dean's face relaxes a little. "They never worked, Dean," Sam tells him with a laugh. "They just helped me pretend he was gone."

"Fuck, Sammy. Fuck! How could you lie to me about—?"

"Never said they worked." Sam pokes at Dean's hand.

"You never said they didn't." Dean bites his lip. "Shit, man, I thought you were okay. How could you not tell me?"

"I meant to," Sam replies. "I just kept forgetting."

Dean actually laughs at that. "How do you forget to tell me goddamn Lucifer is joining us for lunch?"

"You were happy, Dean. You were trusting me on the job again. You were hitting on waitresses again." Sam shrugs. "I don't know. They _did_ stop me from panicking on hunts or freaking out in public. It just didn't seem that important."

Dean's lips are a thin line all the way back to the room. He throws the pills out first thing when they get inside.

They spend the next three days in that room, Sam shaking and shivering his way back as the medicine wears off. He probably looks worse than he has in a month from where Dean's sitting. It's like all the muscles in his body are making up for the week they spent not responding to what was happening to them. But it's nice for Sam, in a weird way. He doesn't feel any worse than he has the whole time, and getting to vocalize it means Dean is there every moment, trying to soothe out the pain and cheer Sam up.

The door closes with a snick, and Sam bolts upright in bed. Dean is standing in the doorway holding greasy bags and looking relieved to see Sam didn't explode into flames while he was gone. But all Sam can think of is the snapping sound the door made as it shut. He puts a hand to his throat, feels around his neck, sinks back into the covers with a sigh.

"That's the worst," he says.

Dean looks down, then back up. "It's not a big town, you diva. It's Burger King or it's nothing."

"No, not the food. The sound."

"What sound?"

"Don't mind the pain so much, you know? I can get used to the hooks in my skin and staring at my body scattered all over a room, but the sound my spine makes when it cracks." Sam shakes his head. "Gives me the willies."

Dean is still standing there staring at Sam with his hands full and his mouth open; Sam swallows and looks away. "The door just. I was having a nightmare and I woke up, and…"

Dean takes a few careful steps forward and sets one bag down in front of Sam, pulling away like Sam's some monster about to attack. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says.

Sam nods, uncurling the top of his bag and stealing a few fries.

"I'll be careful with the door."

"That'd be good," says Sam through a bite of cheeseburger.

Dean sets the rest of the things he's carrying on the table and throws a glance over his shoulder at Sam. "Sure are hungry now, huh?"

Sam knows what he means is _I'm sorry_ and _don't eat so much so fast, you'll choke_. He smiles around stuffed cheeks.

They turn on the TV and don't talk much as they eat. It's the first peaceful night they've had in a while, so Sam doesn't push it. Doesn’t try to force a conversation. He's actually feeling okay, though he wishes he'd been thinking clearly enough earlier not to freak Dean out so much.

When the TV goes off a few hours later, Dean turns to look at Sam. "I remember that sound," he says.

It takes Sam a few moments to catch up to what he's referring to. He almost forgets sometimes that Dean's been to Hell, too. Selfish, but Sam always has been.

"It didn't bother me as much as the hooks, though," Dean continues, a wry twist to his lips.

Sam smiles at that. He's always admired that in Dean, always envied it a little. Dean understands physical, the pain and the pleasure; he's here and now, two feet firmly on the ground. A beer, a fuck, and a good fight and Dean's over what's bothering him. Sam's the one who gets caught up on the little things. He can't help thinking it would be easier to leave Hell behind now that the pain has stopped if he was more like his brother.

"Sam, if you need to talk about it, I can listen."

"Talking isn't going to make it go away, Dean."

Dean looks over at him. "Did _you_ just say that?"

Sam grins. "I'm serious. If there were something I wanted to talk about, I would."

"I didn't say want, I said need." Dean moves from his bed to sit next to Sam. "I don't know how to help you anymore, man. I'm all out of ideas. Those stupid pills were my last idea and they just made everything worse."

Sam reaches up, grabs Dean's forearm and holds on. Dean shifts so he can catch Sam's eye, and Sam smiles. "Do you promise not to make fun of me?"

"You know I can't promise that," Dean says, smiling weakly when Sam lets go of him and rolls his eyes.

"Just stay here, okay? Right here. That's how you're helping. Just stay with me."

Dean moves a few hairs off Sam's face, and his smile shifts to something elusively tender. "I'm not going anywhere, Sammy."

"I know," Sam says. "That's why I'm bound to get better."

Dean is still sitting there when Sam falls asleep.

_______________________________________________________________

He's pressing kisses up Sam's thighs, and Sam is so hard he's on the verge of tears. Begging, for some kind of relief until Dean's low, rich laugh vibrates against his bare skin.

"You want me to suck you?" he asks.

Sam laughs. "Has anyone ever answered that with a no?"

Dean smiles against him. "You sure haven't."

"Is this a dream?" Sam asks.

Dean raises his head. "Does it matter? Right now, does it really matter?"

"I suppose not," Sam replies, fingers curling in Dean's short hairs, tugging him up. Dean comes willingly, kisses Sam lightly. "I don't have good dreams like this anymore. You think maybe it means something?"

"Probably," Dean answers, "but I'm not your shrink."

Sam lets Dean pull his face back enough to give Sam a smirk and Sam laughs and shoves him back down. "You're only good for one thing," he says.

Dean wraps his lips around Sam then, apparently determined to prove him right.

_______________________________________________________________

He wakes up with Dean's back pressed against his side. Dean's not under the covers, he’s crammed all the way into the nightstand, but he's curled up on Sam's bed like he hasn't moved all night. And yeah, that would explain the good dreams. Sam reaches out, feeling just a little bit self-indulgent, strokes his fingers over the spiky ends of his brother's hair.

Dean makes an mmm sound and rolls over. His eyes are heavy, he's glaring blearily at Sam for waking him, and Sam can't help remembering him in the dreamscape, all those mornings he refused to get out of bed until Sam brought him coffee.

"I can make coffee," Sam says. He bends a little to kiss Dean, then remembers where and who he is and pulls back.

Dean glares a few seconds longer, pulls his pillow over his head, and leaves Sam to it.

All is well until they get on the job that day. Sam has smoothed out the glitches that tripped him up when they first started hunting again, even the cold spots don't bother him so much anymore. But this hunt…this was a demon, and now the demon is lying face flat in a puddle of his own blood.

Sam tries not to stare at it. Tries not to think of falling to his knees and licking it off the floor. But he was strong once, unbelievably so. Demons feared him. Hell, angels feared him. Sam was strong once, and now he's something to be pitied. Now he cries for no reason. Now he wakes up every morning and has to check the sheets for piss. Sam can smell the damn blood, can feel a spark of the power it would give him.

He would be okay. It would make him okay.

Dean's hands curl around Sam's bicep and shake him. Reluctantly, Sam pulls his eyes away from the blood and sees a look in his brother's eyes he hasn’t seen in years. Doubt. Disappointment. He's scared of Sam, he's scared of what Sam will do. And Sam's sure he could talk Dean into letting him drink it. If he can convince his brother it's the only thing that could make him better, Dean would let him. Maybe that's part of what Dean looks so afraid of.

"Let's go, Sam," he says.

Sam looks back at the demon and licks his lips. "Yeah," he says. "We should definitely go."

He waits until they're in the car, driving to a new city, the demon safely secured out of his reach before he lets out all the tenseness in his muscles and tries to think of something other than the taste of sulfur and metal and electricity. "So," he says, a little shaky, but a little playful, too. "No more demon hunts."

Dean barks out a laugh. "No more demon hunts," he agrees, foot to the pedal with just a little extra force.

They don't drive long, just long enough. The music between them and the occasional insult is the best way to unwind, and by the time they stop for the night, Sam has mostly forgotten what they're running from.

Dean approaches the front counter, asks for a room for two. The middle-aged lady behind the counter steps back to grab keys off the wall, asks the inevitable 'one bed or two' question. She turns to look at Dean when he hesitates, and he averts his eyes.

"One," he says, almost a challenge.

The woman picks a key, her eyes dodging over to Sam as she drops it into Dean's palm. Sam wants to throw a 'yeah, lady, I wish' to her knowing smirk, but instead he looks down at his toes and follows when Dean picks his duffel up off the floor and leads them to their room.

They order Chinese, sit on the king mattress with carry-out boxes spread over the extra space. "Next hunt?" Sam asks, slurping a noodle.

"Dunno," Dean replies. "Back to Bobby's?"

"What about Castiel?"

Dean snickers, poking a fork into a container of sticky rice. "What about Castiel?"

"Shouldn't we be trying to stop him?"

"One major problem at a time, Sammy," Dean says. "Let's get you all better and then go kill ourselves hunting God. Sound good?"

"No."

"Glad we agree." Dean pauses, then shrugs. "He's calmed down since you woke up, anyway. Hardly causing trouble lately."

"Yeah, why do you think that is, anyway?"

Dean’s expression doesn’t change much, but Sam can't help noticing that he's stabbing at his rice with a little more enthusiasm. "Guilty conscience, maybe."

Sam reaches for the rice and forces it out of Dean's hand. "I bet we can get through to him, then."

Dean watches Sam eat the rice, and Sam throws him a triumphant smile. "Maybe," he agrees. "But we ain't trying until you're back to speed." Sam sighs. "I'm serious, Sam. It's only been a month and a half since you woke up. We've taken longer to save the world."

Sam laughs. "Yeah, okay."

Dean picks up a fortune cookie and tosses the other at Sam. "Anyway," he says. "This is much more important."

He cracks the shell and shoves half in his mouth before he even looks at the thin strip of paper inside. Sam holds his up. "Long life is in store for you," he reads. He laughs and drops the paper in an empty container. "God, I hope not."

"Smiley face. There is no failure, just the opportunity to begin again. Smiley face," Dean says with surprising dignity before adding, "in bed."

"Yes, that we are," Sam replies, feeling his cheeks burning when he realizes what he's just pointed out. It’s not fair—he and Dean used to do this kind of shit all the time when Sam was dreaming, Dean should stop acting so much like his boyfriend if Sam's not supposed to get the wrong idea.

"Mmm, you know what's missing, Sammy?"

Sam looks over at him and smiles. "A fair chunk of my sanity?"

Dean laughs, rolling over to shove Sam's side. He lifts his hand so it's just in front of Sam's face and wiggles his fingers. "Magic fingers."

"You have a problem," Sam mutters.

"No, seriously, when was the last time we stayed at a respectable motel?"

"Okay, see, that, that right there. That's not normal." Dean looks at Sam, innocent and puzzled and so full of shit it's coming out of his ears. "Normal people don't judge respectable motels by your standards, Dean."

"I think it was the kid," Dean continues, off on his own train of thought. "Remember little Bobby John, Sam?"

Sam frowns. "I remember handing him over to hunters."

Dean's eyes fly open. "That was—shit, I forgot."

Sam shakes his head. "One thing I can safely say is that I am over the soulless thing. Not my fault, blah blah, and so forth. Much more interesting things to be screwed up over these days."

Dean doesn't look entirely convinced, but he smiles just a little. "That's good, Sammy. That's real good. I don't think I could have—"

"Handled it?" Dean nods. "I don't think I could have, either. Not all at once. But luckily, I got the soulless luggage out of the way before I woke up to deal with the Hell luggage."

"How?" Dean asks. "Maybe we can replicate it."

Sam laughs. "It was, uh. You, actually. In the dream. You were there, and you helped me. Like I told you, I couldn't have done it on my own. Not that strong."

Dean sits up, very serious all of a sudden and looks Sam in the eye. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Sam. You're strong enough for anything."

"Okay, I'm waiting for the insult," Sam replies.

Dean looks back down. "I'm not joking this time. The things you've beaten. Sammy, you're the strongest damn person ali—"

"Don't, okay?" Sam stands to clean up their dinner, looking for a distraction. "Just don’t."

"All I'm saying is—"

"Don't say it. You don't know anything about it." Sam turns to face him. "You wanna hear how strong I am, Dean? You really wanna know about Hell?"

Dean gets to his feet, crosses the room in three long steps and takes the things Sam's carrying out of his hands. He sets them on the counter and turns back to grab Sam's hands. "You know I don't want to," he says. "And yet I've been telling you for a month and a half that I'll listen if you'll just fucking talk to me."

"You remember what you did, Dean? You remember how weak you felt, how long you hated yourself for it?"

"Of course I do." Sam sees the muscles in Dean's jaw tighten. "But you didn't, Sam."

"No, I didn't. They didn't give that option where I was." Sam feels himself losing his grip, and Dean holds him steady, steers him to the bed. Dean sits him down on the edge, and Sam reaches up for him. "I begged for it, Dean. You took 30 years to break? Michael and Lucifer had me for an hour before I was begging them to let me torture someone."

Dean pulls Sam's face against him and strokes his hands in Sam's hair, and Sam doesn’t care that he looks and feels like a child. Dean is the only thing holding Sam together. "It was different, Sammy. It was worse for you. So much worse."

"That blood." Sam turns his face, snot and tears rubbing into his brother's shirt. "They gave me blood sometimes, Dean. They let me drink my own when they’d cut into me, and I could taste the demon in it, and I liked it. It was the only thing I got down there that made me happy."

"What happens in Hell, it doesn't count up here." Dean nods, turns Sam's face up and looks down into his eyes. "You told me that yourself."

"Up here," Sam scoffs. "I'm no better. You know what I was thinking on that hunt, Dean. You know."

"Shh, Sam. It's bedtime, okay?"

Dean pulls Sam up the bed to his pillow, and Sam is still crying too hard to fight it. Dean gets in behind him, wraps an arm around Sam's waist and pulls every inch of Sam against him. The embrace is so tight it's almost not affectionate, like Dean is claiming Sam, holding on to him so that whatever tries to drag him in another direction can't beat the grip.

"You think I'm your brother," Sam says. "But he's better than I am. Whoever you think I am, he's too good to be me. I don't think I ever was him, but I'm definitely not now."

Dean breathes out against Sam's neck. "Sammy, you're my little brother. You're exactly who I want my little brother to be."

"I don't believe you," Sam replies.

"Go to sleep, okay?" Dean pulls Sam even closer. "You'll believe me in the morning."

At some point in the night, Sam wakes up and peers around the motel room. There’s just enough light coming in from the street outside their window for shadows to cut across the floor. Sam sees a Dean-shaped silhouette hug a bottle to its chest, watches it rest its face in its hands. He hears when Dean breaks down, when a sob rips through him, and Sam doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or bitterness or a mix of the two making his brother cry like that, but he can’t help thinking that other Sam was right. Waking up from that coma was the worst thing he could have done to Dean.

The next time he wakes up, he’s in a sunny room, wrapped in 200 pounds of Dean, and he lets out a long sigh of relief. He thinks he's home. He thinks he'll open his eyes and see the same old blue quilt and maybe he'll finally convince Dean they need a new one and maybe Dean will stay as stubbornly attached to the stupid thing as always, but that’s okay. Sam doesn’t really care about the quilt. He wants to have the fight. He’s happy to let Dean win when they’re fighting over stupid things like that. They'll go about their daily lives and Sam will never tell his brother that he thought this was a dream and what he woke up to was horrible and full of Hell and somehow a little better, too.

Dean shifts behind him. Sam turns, smiling wide, and catches a glimpse of the surprised happiness on Dean's face before he presses their lips together, sliding a hand over his brother's cheek. It's not until Dean reacts, shoving Sam away immediately—not like he has something to say before they go at it, like it's instinct—that Sam realizes he was half-awake and deluding himself. Dean isn't his; Dean is watching him with a horrified look on his face, like Sam just did the worst thing imaginable.

"Dean, I—"

"What did they do?" Dean asks, bringing his fingers to his lips. "Jesus, Sammy, in Hell did they—did they make you—?"

Sam watches him, watches Dean's concerned expression, and, for the first time in over a month, wishes he was dead. That's Dean's Hell.

"I thought it was Heaven," Sam says, laughing. He doesn't know why, he certainly doesn't think it's funny, and Dean doesn't join him, doesn't pretend it's something they can laugh away.

_______________________________________________________________

They don't talk about it, of course. They just go on with their hunt, and with the next one, and the one after that. Dean doesn't stop sharing Sam's bed, but he puts the most space between them possible. He doesn't stop touching Sam—that would be far too obvious—but the easiness that has always characterized Dean's touch is gone.

Now they're fighting some kind of tentacle plant monster, and Dean is a few seconds from being asphyxiated by the damn thing. Sam slices the vines where they've got Dean's hands pinned, and Dean starts hacking at the rest of them while Sam runs for the spell they need to kill it. Dean had dropped it when the tendrils surprised him, but it's easy to spot the white sheet against a sea of green.

When all is said and done, the damn plant bursts into flames, and Sam gets to help Dean cough and splutter his way back to the Impala. His face is still a little blue from the choking, but it's nothing they both haven't been through, and the motel is only a few blocks away from the park entrance.

Sam drives, the first time since he got out of Hell, he realizes, and Dean only seems to give him the keys to keep Sam from putting his perverted hands where they don't belong.

When they get to the motel, Dean rushes to the bathroom, his shirt coming off in front of the mirror. He's in too much of a rush to remember to close the door, and Sam looks, not because he wants to see but because he needs to know how bad the damage is. There are thin red lines across Dean's chest, but the stitches on his side didn't break, and Sam takes that as a sign they're ready to come off.

He steps into the bathroom behind Dean. "Those look just like the rattlesnake monster," Sam says, laughing. "Remember?"

"No," Dean replies. He shifts away from Sam a little, but he smiles, too. "What rattlesnake monster?"

"The one we fought just before we went to the Grand Canyon," Sam answers. Dean only looks more confused, and suddenly Sam remembers what they did _after_ the Grand Canyon, all the hands and the lips and Sam licking at the red lines on Dean's chest. He scrubs a hand over his face. "We've never been to the Grand Canyon, have we?"

"No, Sammy," Dean says dejectedly. "Always wanted to go."

"Of course," Sam mutters. "It's only the really good memories that are fake."

"And the bad ones," Dean reminds him.

Sam smiles thinly. "Yeah, I guess those, too. In a way."

They stand there opposite each other for a long minute before Dean smiles and shrugs. "This isn't so bad, though. I can sleep it off. In a few days it won't even be visible."

Sam nods, steps forward and traces the line of scar tissue on Dean's side. "The stitches from the ghost hunt are about done."

Dean sucks in a breath as soon as Sam touches him, doesn’t pull away immediately. He closes his eyes and Sam steps closer, and that must break the spell, because Dean turns away.

"Don't touch me, Sam."

Sam tries to hide how much that hurts. "Jesus, Dean, I'm just offering to help with your stitches. I'm not gonna—"

"I know that," Dean says, fingers wrapping around Sam's wrist and pushing him away. "I know that. Just don't, okay?"

"No, not okay." Sam frowns. "I get that I shouldn't have kissed you but—"

"You shouldn't have," he says. "You really fucking shouldn't have."

Sam steps away. "All the things you've forgiven me for, and this is what you're going to hate me over? I will never make you do anything you don't want to do, if you don’t know that—"

Dean shakes his head, gripping the sink. Sam watches his face in the mirror, even though Dean isn't looking directly at it. It's better than his absolute refusal to even glance in Sam's direction. "Of course I know that, Sam, Jesus. But I know why they forced you." He swallows. "It's my fault, Sam, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you shouldn't have kissed me."

"I know that, Dean. I just…couldn't help it."

"I know you couldn't, Sammy. I know they made you, and you thought you were there again—"

"No. You're wrong. Dean, I've always wanted—"

Dean laughs shakily, and Sam catches his brother's eye in the mirror for a second before Dean deflects. He sees something dark and heated, and suddenly, Sam thinks he understands why Dean has been so quick to look away since that kiss.

Sam takes a step and puts himself directly behind Dean, watching his brother's reactions in the mirror. Dean seems to stop breathing.

"You want me, don't you?" Sam crowds into him, puts his hands on his brother's hips. "God, you do, I can tell."

Dean drops his head. "Sam, please. Just leave me alone."

"Why do it alone when you can have the real thing?" Sam asks, bending low to press his lips to Dean's ear. Dean is shaking, and Sam can feel every tremor through him, and he can't remember the last time he was this turned on.

Dean moves back, into Sam, and Sam groans. But he watches Dean's mind change in the mirror, watches Dean get a grip of himself and turn in the small amount of space Sam's given him.

"Not ever, Sam," he says. "I won't do that to you. I swore I would _never_ do that to you."

Sam's eyebrows draw together. "I'm pretty sure it was my idea."

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't," Dean replies coolly.

"Dean, I've wanted you since—I don't even remember. Believe me."

"I believe that you think that's true," Dean says. "But I know it isn't."

"How do you figure?"

Dean shrugs. "Because I…you never said anything about it before. Now you get back from Hell and suddenly you won’t stop looking at me like—you don't have to go to college to figure it out."

"You never said anything, either," Sam says. "How long have you wanted it?"

Dean makes a dismissive sound. "That's not the point. You've always been the one to ask, Sammy. I'm the one who can't say no. Remember?"

 _You're saying no now_ , Sam thinks, almost amused, but he keeps the observation to himself. "I never said anything because I was scared of it before. Scared what you'd think of me. I never would have kissed you if I'd been thinking straight, but I'm not sorry. Not if you want me back."

"This conversation is over," Dean says. "Get outta here, I need to piss."

"You can’t just decide it's over." Sam reaches out, trying to keep his touch gentle despite how hard he wants to throttle his brother. "This isn't something—"

"We ever need to talk about. Because the answer is no. The answer is always going to be no. Jesus, Sam, do you have any fucking idea how hard I've fought not to want you?"

"Yes," Sam replies. "I fought it, too. I know."

"Whenever the idea even popped into my head, I would squash it. I didn't ever let it keep going or try to work it out of my system. I killed it. And if I had a dream, I told myself, well, it's a dream. It doesn't mean anything. Nothing I can do to control it. Even if it's not a nightmare, that doesn't mean—" He shakes his head. "And then you wake up, and you wake up like this. You wake up and you need me to take care of you and the last thing I should do is want you. Why'd you have to go and kiss me, Sam? I _can't stop_ thinking about it. I can't stop wanting you. No matter what I try—"

"But Dean it'll make me—"

"I'm not taking advantage of you. I promise. I'd rather die."

"I don't want that promise. It's—not dirty. You don't have to be ashamed."

"I'm not ashamed, I was never ashamed of it. Hell, it made sense to me. I just wasn’t going there unless you asked for it. And now you _can’t_ ask for it. I’ve got no way of knowing Lucifer didn’t put this in your head. Because of me, maybe. If there was some way I could be sure, I would—" He reaches out and cups Sam's cheek, and Sam leans into it. Dean nearly whimpers. "But there isn't. You gotta understand that."

Sam sighs and lets his arms drop. "I understand," he says gloomily.

Dean smiles, maybe the fakest smile since Sam woke up and that's not without competition. "Good. Okay. You can—bathroom's yours."

By the time Sam gets back out, Dean is already huddled on one side of the bed pretending to sleep. Sam sighs, sliding under the covers, his brother's body heat more present than ever.

It's a long night.

_______________________________________________________________

Dean is good to Sam the next day. Probably better than Sam deserves. Sam doesn't know if it's guilt for disappointing Sam or nearly giving into him, but he lets Sam drive, and pick their stops, and Sam is just not above using it to his advantage.

They haven't done this in a while—not since a few nights before Sam jumped into the cage—but Dean agrees easily, buys the beer the first time they stop for gas after Sam throws the idea out and bounces like an excited kid all day.

Now the sun has finally set, Sam couldn't have hoped for a clearer night, and they pull off the road the first chance they get. Sam is nervous, reciting the speech he's been writing, unwriting, rewriting in his head since Dean left him standing alone in that bathroom last night, half-hard and rejected, but oddly optimistic, as well. He never dreamed Dean could want him—or at least, he never dreamed Dean could want him outside of dreaming.

Dean, blissfully ignorant to the trap he's just walked into, is rounding the car, opening the trunk to pull beers out. Sam climbs onto the Impala's hood, his head tipped all the way back, and takes in the stars until Dean joins him, a cold beer pressing into his side.

"Thanks," Sam says.

"Yeah, no problem," Dean answers, hiss of a bottle cap under his words. "Wanna hear something funny?"

Sam grins and brings the bottle to his lips. "Sure," he says. "Tell me something funny."

"I tried doing this with you when you'd just gotten back from Hell. 'Cause I was missing Lisa and glad to have you back, or whatever." Dean shakes his head, a rueful smile on his lips.

Sam snorts. "And I said, 'What's the point?'"

Dean nods. "You know, I actually didn't have an answer for that one."

Sam laughs. "Yeah, that's, uh…that's funny."

Dean looks over fondly and pats Sam's thigh very quickly. "I missed you, man."

"Want a tissue?"

"Fuck off," Dean answers, shoving Sam hard enough that he loses balance, has to grab Dean's shoulder to keep from falling off the car.

They go quiet then, which is how it's supposed to go, generally. A few introductory insults and then a nice, long, comfortable silence. This is not supposed to be caring and sharing time, and Sam knows that, but with Dean there is no caring and sharing time, and Sam has a lot to say.

He still feels like he's breaking a sacred rule when he speaks. "Can I tell you something, Dean?"

"Anything," he answers, though he doesn't take his eyes off the sky.

"Do you remember Kaylee Walters?"

Dean shoots Sam a look like that was the last thing he expected to come out of his brother's mouth but he nods. "Your little friend, right? The hot one who wasn't into me for no discernible reason?"

Sam laughs. "She was into you," he says.

"Ah, well. She had a funny way of showing it." He shrugs and takes a sip. "No worries, my ego has recovered."

"More than it should have, even."

Dean sticks his tongue out.

"She thought you were joking when you hit on her," Sam tells him. "That's why she giggled so much."

"Yeah? Why'd she think that?"

Sam picks at the label of his beer. "I told her you were my boyfriend." 

Dean chokes. "You what?" he asks once he's finally swallowed his beer.

"I told her you were my boyfriend, Dean."

"What the hell'd you do that for?"

Sam smiles. "She saw you waiting for me one day after school. You know, leaning against the car, leather jacket, the way you always did."

Dean nods.

"She thought you were hot. She asked if I knew you and I said 'yeah' and then, I don't know. The lie just came out." Sam swallows, looks down at the beer wrapper littered in his lap. "I wanted so badly for it to be true, Dean. Even then." He looks over and finds Dean watching him. "I thought…just once I'd like to leave someone behind who didn't feel bad for us. One person in the whole world who thought, 'Sam Winchester? He's the luckiest boy in the world.'"

"There are more exciting lies to tell people," Dean says, looking away.

"You'd think that, but I still haven’t thought of one." Sam shrugs, hoping at least some of the easiness he's faking seems genuine. "Anyway, I've spent all day thinking, and this is the only evidence I've got to prove I'm not confused about this. It's not Lucifer. You are seeing it, aren't you?"

Dean shifts a little next to him, takes a long pull from his drink. Finally he answers, "Would explain a few questions I had about her."

"I'm not going to kiss you again, Dean. I'm not going to bring this up again. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't feel comfortable with. But I think you should listen. I think you should give me a chance because…we can be happy. I've seen it, Dean. I spent six months in my head because I couldn't stand to let it go."

Dean opens his mouth and Sam cuts him off before he can start.

"I know what you're going to say. It was a dream, it wasn't real. And I know that. I know what was and wasn't. I don't want it anymore. It's not—it was great, I wish you'd seen it. I was a lawyer and you wore suspenders and it was perfect, but it wasn't real and I _can_ tell the difference, whatever you may think."

"So what are you telling me for, if none of it was real and you don't even want it to be?"

"Exactly like I said, I know what I was making up and what I wasn't. Dean, I know you. It was you, but it was you so happy…" Sam shakes his head. "And I woke up knowing that if you could ever want me, we really could be that happy, but I thought you never would." Sam lowers his voice almost to a whisper. "I don't think I'll ever be happy like that without it."

"You saying I'm the cure to Hell?" Dean asks, one eyebrow arched. "That's a new one."

"No, I don't think there is a cure to Hell." Dean frowns, but Sam smiles. "I'm not saying that in a bad way, just, I dunno. Some days I'm going to be fine, and some days I'm not. I'll have nightmares and I'll burst into spontaneous tears and it'll be embarrassing and scary and we'll hate it, but," Sam lifts his hands, "What can we do, right? We were always gonna be a little worse for wear."

"But you said—"

"I said happy, not normal. Not like before, and that wasn't really the pinnacle of mental stability to begin with." Dean laughs. Sam realizes then that it's funny, and he laughs too. He feels good. Even if Dean still rejects him, Sam is glad to get this off his chest. And maybe he gets too excited from the lightness, wants to say everything that pops into his head. It comes out in a rush. "We’ve never been happy, have we? Not really. I think we could be. The rest of the time, you know? When I'm not in the pit. And when I am, I'll still have you to help me through."

Dean stays quiet but he does look like he's mulling things over, so Sam puts that in the win column.

"I know you're going to want to think this is because you did something wrong. Screwed me up or something—"

"Sam—"

"No, I know you are. But I want you to know it's not anything you did wrong. It's because of everything you did…"

Sam is about to add _right_ , but that's not true, either. It's because of all the things Dean did that Sam wanted to hate him for as much as anything. For pulling him away from Stanford because he missed him. For selling his soul when Sam was better off dead. For asking Sam to wake up when he was finally happy, because someone has to look out, someone has to make sure Sam does the right thing. Sam nods and leaves it at 'everything you did.'

"Look, just, know that I've loved you. I've loved you in every way that a person can and maybe in ways a person shouldn't. Even when I was running from it. Even when I loved someone else. Even with Jess, Dean. You're the love of my life. You've always been and you always will be."

Dean leans forward, a look on his face like he's trying very hard to think of something to say, is maybe getting uncomfortable because he can't. Sam doesn't want to make Dean's night any more awkward than he already has, so he stands, smiling at Dean as he walks away.

"I've said my piece," he says. "I'm done. Please, just think it over for a while before you say no again."

Dean watches Sam leave, but he doesn't get up to follow. Sam sits in the passenger's seat for a long while, watching his brother. Dean finishes his beer slowly, eyes searching the sky for something. Then finally he gets up and joins Sam in the car and they drive to the next motel down the road, Zeppelin familiar between them, something else buzzing underneath it—not known, but not entirely new, either.

When they find a place to stay, Dean still gets one bed. They fall asleep in each other's space, like they have been for weeks. Nothing changes, and Sam doesn't know whether he's relieved or heartbroken by that.

_______________________________________________________________

Sam spends the next day pretty sure Dean thought it over and decided incest just wasn't for him after all. Which, okay, Sam is pretty sure that's the wrong choice. Sam will definitely be damned to a lonely, sexless existence, and Dean probably will be, too. But Sam said he wasn't going to bring it up, so he's not bringing it up.

Dean is his regular, pain-in-the-ass-big-brother self until they're settling into bed, and Dean turns into Sam and kisses him. Sam waits for him to pull away or for the dream to end, but Dean keeps going, cupping Sam's face, lips and tongue insistent. Sam responds because he has to, he's under a spell. All those years he spent imagining, all those months he spent dreaming, nothing compares to the actual feel of Dean, real Dean, kissing Sam, long bruising kisses that say Dean has all the time in the world and wants to spend every second of it just like this.

Dean's arms are strong on Sam's hips as he presses in, and Sam can’t help how turned on he gets. He pushes up into Dean, and when Dean thrusts back, Sam can feel his brother's dick hardening against his thigh.

Sam pulls away. "You wanna fuck me?"

Dean laughs and rests his forehead on Sam's shoulder. "Don't waste time, do you?"

Sam can feel a goofy grin taking over his features. "We've wasted a lot of time, Dean."

"Yeah, I know, Sammy," he says, nodding against Sam.

He kisses Sam again and just keeps kissing. Kisses until Sam is sure he's never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. Then Dean sits back, scanning Sam's face for something. Sam doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but Dean must find what he's looking for, because after a bit he nods—just once, like he's admiring a job well done—and turns over to sleep.

It goes on this way for a few nights, and the days don't change much. Dean is still Dean and Sam is still a work in progress and hunting is still a pretty shitty job. The kissing is the only thing that's new, and it's enough—hell, it's more than enough, more than Sam ever actually intended to ask for.

Yeah, sure, he wants to fuck Dean, and he wants Dean to break him open, and he wants to gag on his brother's dick and watch Dean's mouth get sloppy and swollen around him. But Sam has learned patience, and if Dean is still unsure, Sam's going to do everything it takes not to spook him.

Or just not do the one thing he really wants to.

On the fourth day, Dean takes Sam by surprise. Sam's kissing a line down Dean's throat and is happily distracted, and then suddenly there's a palm on his crotch, insistently kneading through Sam's boxers. Sam's breath is heavy when Dean pulls away. He sits back with his head against the wall and keeps his eyes trained on Dean. Dean smiles wickedly and gives Sam another couple of fast, teasing kisses as he pulls Sam's cock out.

"Got big, didn't you?" Dean says, eyes moving down. Sam can't get over that, the fact that his brother is really here, really saying this and looking at Sam like he's hungry. "You're gonna fucking hurt me with all that, aren’t you?"

Sam shakes his head, but Dean laughs, wearing a fascinated look as he wraps his hand around Sam's shaft. "Mmm, you are. Gonna split me right in half." Dean ducks his head, sucking a mark into Sam's neck. "I want that," he says. "I want it, I want it so bad."

Sam groans. Dean's hand is rough and calloused and not like anything Sam's ever felt. And he's moving it so fast, gripping tighter at the head, thumb pushing and collecting precome the way Dean used to do for himself. Sam learned this from Dean, but he's about ready to admit that, even with years of practice, he hasn't quite surpassed his brother yet.

"Dean," Sam gasps. "You're too—I'm gonna—"

Dean shuts him up with a kiss, his already frantic pace only gets faster. Maybe Sam should be annoyed—Dean is fast-forwarding through a first here—but it only makes him hotter. The way Dean is touching him—Sam feels like he's irresistible, like Dean couldn't stop fucking him if he tried. And Dean, Dean is grinning, still staring at his hand as it reduces Sam to needy thrusts and whines.

"Shit, yeah," Dean whispers. "Show me what you look like when you come for me."

Sam closes his eyes. The heat building in his stomach is white hot, like stars before they die. He cries out, Dean's name, and he's loud enough that everyone in the motel probably hears him. Maybe he should take that into consideration, but damn if it doesn't turn him on. So Sam decides fuck it, throws his head back and yells Dean's name over and over, so that anyone who's interested can know what he and his brother are doing.

Dean laughs then, a light giddy sound as Sam shoots all over his fist, and Sam is still broken as he watches Dean lift that hand up to his lips and lick Sam's mess off him. About half a minute later, when Sam's brain gets back online, he realizes that he should return the favor.

"Should—can I—?" Sam reaches for the fly of Dean's jeans, but Dean just half-smiles, looks away almost shyly.

"Let's just say you owe me one," he says.

Sam looks down, sees that Dean's jeans are already open just enough for a hand to slide in, and there's a wet spot in the fabric. Sam laughs. "Wow," he says, still rasping for breath. "I feel young again."

"Oh, shut up," Dean replies. He leans forward for a kiss. "You would have come, too, if you saw what I was looking at."

Sam smirks. "That's weirdly sweet, coming from you."

"Not really," Dean answers. "There's a mirror over the bed."

Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. He knows Dean wasn't looking in the mirror, and Dean knows he knows.

Dean rolls over, climbing out of bed just long enough to shuck his sticky clothes. Sam watches him, still too worn out to take a real interest, but appreciative nonetheless.

"Tired, Sammy?" he asks.

Sam smiles lazily and nods. He is, and he can't remember the last time he felt so sure he'd get a good night's sleep.

_______________________________________________________________

The next morning, Sam wakes in a state of panic. He knows what's coming, it's happened too many times for him not to. That was a dream, a really lovely dream, and Sam is going to wake up to find out he never kissed Dean at all, never woke up, never left Hell. Last night must have been a joke Lucifer was playing. This is Sam's life, after all.

He reaches out, arms flailing as they search for Dean. There's a slapping sound, Sam's skin meeting Dean, and Dean turns over, looking like he's about ready to plant a bullet in Sam for waking him.

It's the happiest Sam's ever felt when death by gunshot was a distinct possibility.

"Hi," he says cheekily. "Did I wake you?"

"Curse upon you and all your kin," Dean mumbles.

"That sounds about right," Sam says, bending back down for a kiss. Dean rouses enough to return it, somehow already eager despite the fact that the rest of him is still lying like Jello. Dean tastes bitter, like sleep and come and the stale pizza and beer they had last night. It's really pretty disgusting, but he doesn't pull away. Sam can't taste any better, but Dean wraps his hand tightly around Sam's neck and throws his whole body into kissing him, anyway.

Sam lets Dean draw him back to bed, doesn't care if they're burning daylight. The sounds Dean makes when Sam moves against him are making Sam feel plenty productive already. Sam can't really get over it, wants to bask in this all day. This is real—not perfect, much better. If salvation tastes like Dean's morning breath, Sam won't be disappointed. Dean touches him, warm without burning. Hell freezes over.

**End.**


End file.
